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Updated: Sep 30, 2026
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Published on: September 7, 2022
Auditory sensory impairment in children with oral clefts as indexed by auditory event-related potentials
Rita Ceponiene1, Marja-Leena Haapanen, Reijo Ranta
1Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. rceponiene@crl.ucsd.edu
Insights
Auditory sensory memory (ASM) deficits are linked to language and learning disabilities in children with oral clefts. These impairments, particularly shortened sensory memory duration, are associated with cleft type and CATCH 22 syndrome.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Genetics
Background:
- Children with oral clefts and CATCH 22 syndrome exhibit language and learning disabilities.
- The neurofunctional basis of these cognitive impairments remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review event-related brain potential (ERP) studies on central auditory processing in infants and children with oral clefts.
- To integrate ERP and behavioral findings into a hypothesis explaining cognitive impairment mechanisms in this population.
Main Methods:
- Cortical auditory ERPs were recorded to study auditory sensory memory (ASM) functions, specifically tone pitch discrimination and duration.
- Infants and school-aged children with various cleft types, including CATCH 22 syndrome, were assessed.
Main Results:
- Infants with cleft palate showed impaired tone pitch discrimination at birth and 6 months.
- School-aged children with clefts and CATCH 22 syndrome had intact pitch discrimination but shortened ASM duration, varying with cleft type.
- ASM dysfunction was not explained by peripheral hearing deficits.
Conclusions:
- Auditory sensory memory (ASM) dysfunction is implicated in the language disabilities of children with oral clefts.
- ASM impairment and oral clefting appear to be comorbid conditions.
Abstract:
Children with nonsyndromic oral clefts and with the CATCH 22 syndrome (acronym for cardiac defects, abnormal faces, thymus hypoplasia, clefts, and hypocalcemia) display a range of language and learning disabilities, the neurofunctional bases of which are not yet understood. This review summarizes recent event-related brain potential (ERP) studies on central auditory processing in infants and children with different cleft types and presents an effort to integrate these ERP and earlier behavioral findings into a workable hypothesis on the mechanisms of cognitive impairment in the oral cleft population. The encoding of the acoustic sound features and the functioning of auditory sensory memory (ASM) were studied by recording cortical auditory ERPs. Tapped were two ASM functions: tone pitch discrimination and the duration of sensory memory for tone pitch. In infants with cleft palate, tone pitch discrimination was impaired at birth and at 6 months of age. In infants with cleft lip and palate, no ASM impairment was detected at either age. In school-aged children with clefts and CATCH 22 syndrome, the discrimination of tone pitch was intact under optimal stimulation conditions. However, in these children, shortened duration of ASM was observed, with the magnitude of its shortening covarying with cleft type and being most pronounced in children with CATCH 22 syndrome. The different types of ASM dysfunction found in children with different cleft types could not be accounted for by the peripheral hearing deficits. The relation between ASM dysfunction and known behavioral cognitive disability profiles in children with different cleft types suggests that ASM is implicated in language disabilities of children with oral clefts. Furthermore, it appears that the ASM impairment and oral clefting are linked in a comorbid fashion.
