Brain Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) Measured at Birth Predict Later Language Development in Children with and Without Familial Risk for Dyslexia

Enhancement of brain event-related potentials to speech sounds is associated with compensated reading skills in dyslexic children with familial risk for dyslexia

“…Previously, in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD) as well as in other longitudinal studies, infant brain measures have been shown to predict preschool language and elementary school reading problems (Guttorm, Leppänen, Poikkeus, Eklund, Lyytinen, & Lyytinen, 2005;Leppänen et al, 2010;Molfese, 2000;van der Leij et al, 2013). In the current study, within the at-risk group, brain responses at the age of six months were strongly related to reading speed at 14 years in 8 th grade, and also to preschool cognitive skills phonology, letter knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and verbal short-term memory (verbal STM).…”

Phonetic Recalibration in Audiovisual Speech

“…For example, newborns with familial risk for dyslexia display deviant brain activity when compared to non-risk infants when presented with synthetic /ba/, /da/ and /ga/ sounds (Guttorm, Leppanen, Tolvanen, & Lyytinen, 2003;Leppanen, Pihko, Eklund, & Lyytinen, 1999), which in turn is closely related to poorer receptive language skills and verbal memory in the following years of development (Guttorm et al, 2005).…”

“…Alternatively though, auditory impairments might equally-likely be the primary cause of any deficiencies in sound categorization, as DD-related auditory speech deficits have been shown to already be present at birth. For example, newborns with familial risk for dyslexia display deviant brain activity if compared to non-risk infants when presented with synthetic /ba/, /da/ and /ga/ sounds (Guttorm et al, 2003;Leppanen et al, 1999), which in turn is closely related to poor receptive language skills and verbal memory in the following years of development (Guttorm et al, 2005). Lipreading skills are also known to develop with age (e.g., Massaro, 1984;McGurk & MacDonald, 1976) and another possibility is that this developmental trend as such is disrupted by the DD-related auditory impairments.…”

“…Voor het buiksprekereffect bleek het omgekeerde echter ook waar te zijn; de waargenomen locatie van een visuele stimulus kan verschuiven in de richting van een toon op een andere locatie en kan ook recalibratie na-effecten induceren (Radeau & Bertelson, 1987). In hoofdstuk 4 wordt een experiment beschreven waarin Leppanen et al, 1999) en dus mogelijk de ontwikkeling van andere aspecten die met spraak te maken hebben hinderen (Guttorm et al, 2005). Naar aanleiding van deze gedachtegang werd in het experiment in hoofdstuk 6 het mogelijke verband tussen dyslexie en recalibratie onderzocht.…”

Development of structure and function in the infant brain: Implications for cognition, language and social behaviour

“…Guttorm and colleagues (Guttorm et al, 2001) found that the ERP responses elicited by stop consonant-vowel syllables (/ba/, /da/, and / ga/) differentiated the at-risk group from the controls, within a few days of birth. While infants from non-dyslexic families exhibited a prominent activation pattern over the left hemisphere, activation patterns reflecting syllable discrimination were greater over the right temporal and parietal areas in the at-risk group (see also Guttorm et al, 2003Guttorm et al, ,2005.…”