[Auditory processing in specific language disorder]

Specific language impairment (SLI) is diagnosed when a child has difficulty in producing or understanding spoken language for no apparent reason. The diagnosis in made when language development is out of keeping with other aspects of development, and possible explanatory causes have been excluded.

During the last years neurosciences have approached to the study of SLI. The ability to process two or more rapidly presented, successive, auditory stimuli is believed to underlie successful language acquisition. It has been proposed that SLI is the consequence of low-level abnormalities in auditory perception. Too, children with SLI show a specific deficit in automatic discrimination of syllables. Electrophysiological methods may reveal underlying immaturity or other abnormality of auditory processing even when behavioural thresholds look normal.

There is much controversy about the role of such deficits in causing their language problems, and it has been difficult to establish solid, replicable findings in this area because of the heterogeneity in the population and because insufficient attention has been paid to maturational aspects of auditory processing.