[Children with specific language impairment: electrophysiological and pedaudiological findings]

Auditory deficits may be at the core of the language delay in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). It was therefore hypothesized that children with SLI perform poorly on 4 tests typically used to diagnose central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) as well in the processing of phonetic and tone stimuli in an electrophysiological experiment.

14 children with SLI (mean age 61,7 months) and 16 children without SLI (mean age 64,9 months) were tested with 4 tasks: non-word repetition, language discrimination in noise, directional hearing, and dichotic listening. The electrophysiological recording Mismatch Negativity (MMN) employed sine tones (600 vs. 650 Hz) and phonetic stimuli (/ε/ versus /e/).

Control children and children with SLI differed significantly in the non-word repetition as well as in the dichotic listening task but not in the two other tasks. Only the control children recognized the frequency difference in the MMN-experiment. The phonetic difference was discriminated by both groups, however, effects were longer lasting for the control children. Group differences were not significant.

Children with SLI show limitations in auditory processing that involve either a complex task repeating unfamiliar or difficult material and show subtle deficits in auditory processing at the neural level.