Auditory Electrophysiological Findings in Children with Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Speech and Hearing Sciences

Background:

• Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) affects 7% of preschoolers, characterized by language acquisition impairments without a known biomedical cause.
• Central auditory processing links to DLD, prompting investigation using auditory evoked potentials.
• Existing research on auditory electrophysiology in DLD is dispersed and heterogeneous.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically synthesize evidence on auditory electrophysiological findings in children with DLD.
• To identify potential electrophysiological markers for DLD characterization.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature searches conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus (Jan 2016-Mar 2026).
• Two independent reviewers performed screening and data extraction; risk of bias assessed using JBI tool.
• Structured narrative synthesis (SWiM) applied to findings from seven included studies.

Main Results:

• Frequency Following Response (FFR) showed sensitivity to temporal and spectral alterations, especially with noise.
• Click-Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) findings were inconsistent, indicating limited sensitivity for isolated DLD.
• Long-latency auditory evoked potentials (N2, P300) demonstrated prolonged latencies, suggesting cortical immaturity.

Conclusions:

• Evidence suggests potential subcortical, cortical, and linguistic encoding impairments in DLD.
• Methodological heterogeneity and lack of adolescent samples highlight research gaps.
• FFR and LLAEP/P300 warrant further investigation as auxiliary measures for DLD characterization.