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Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) patients are at increased risk for central auditory processing (CAP) deficits and cognitive dysfunction. However, behavioral assessments of CAP and cognitive processing used in a previous study by our research team found few significant differences in performance between early-stage PD patients and age-matched control subjects. The objective of this study is to use auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) to compare CAP and cognitive functions in a population of PD patients with a group of age-matched control subjects., Methods: AERPs in response to tonal and speech stimuli were recorded from 35 adults who had a medical diagnosis of PD (23 males and 12 females; mean age = 66.9 ± s.d.11.2 years), and 35 age-matched control subjects who did not have PD or any other neurological disorders (31 males and 4 females; mean age = 65.4 ± s.d.12.3 years). Auditory stimuli included pure tones (500 and 1000 Hz) to elicit the P300 response and a dichotic digits paradigm to elicit the N200 processing negativity., Results: Compared to control subjects, PD patients exhibited significantly longer latencies of P300 and N200 components and smaller amplitude N200 components. Latency and amplitude of the N200 component were significantly correlated with participants' age. N200 amplitude was correlated with results from the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) of cognitive ability. Latency of the P300 and amplitude of the N200 components were significantly correlated with results from the Spatial Release From Masking (SRM) behavioral CAP assessment., Conclusions: AERP assessments used in this study appear to be sensitive indicators of CAP and cognitive deficits exhibited by early-stage PD patients. While few significant differences in performance on behavioral CAP and cognitive tests were previously observed between this population of PD patients and age-matched control subjects, N200 and P300 components recorded in the present study revealed impaired neural processing by the PD group., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Robert L. Folmer et al.)

Introduction: The medial olivocochlear system (MOCS) is composed of fibres projecting directly onto outer hair cells and plays a role in improving the signal-to-noise ratio. The MOCS can be evaluated by measuring suppression of the otoacoustic emissions evoked by contralateral acoustic stimulation. Dyslexic children present an increased probability of auditory processing disorder (APD). These children may present paradoxical MOCS dysfunction., Case Report: We report the case of a dyslexic child with APD, who was severely disabled in a noisy environment. Audiometric tests were normal, and the central auditory assessment showed labile MOCS functioning that was not only ineffective, but also potentially deleterious, possibly accounting for this child's hearing impairment in a noisy environment., Discussion: This case illustrates the importance of audiological assessment and objective investigation of MOCS function in children with a learning disability, especially with hearing difficulties in the presence of noise, in whom auditory training can be beneficial., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Congenital amusia is a specific condition in which the individual is unable to recognise tonal variations in a piece of musical. This cannot be explained by a previous brain injury, hearing loss, cognitive deficit, socio-affective disorder or lack of environmental stimulation. The current estimated prevalence is 1.5% of the world population, with a significant genetic component among those who suffer from it. It has been claimed that certain cognitive abilities in the emotional, spatial and language fields may be affected in people with amusia., Aim: To review the literature describing the effects on non-musical skills that may coexist in individuals with congenital amusia., Development: Several neuroimaging studies have observed morphological and functional changes in the temporal lobe, as well as in the white matter connections between the superior temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus. From these affected regions, there may be a deficit in cognitive skills related to adjacent areas., Conclusions: Congenital amusia has been associated with poor performance in different non-musical cognitive skills, such as visuospatial processing, language processing, reading difficulties, face recognition and emotional aspects.

The most studied form of congenital amusia is characterized by a difficulty with detecting pitch anomalies in melodies, also referred to as pitch deafness. Here, we tested for the presence of associated deficits in rhythm processing, beat in particular, in pitch deafness. In Experiment 1, participants performed beat perception and production tasks with musical excerpts of various genres. The results show a beat finding disorder in six of the ten assessed pitch-deaf participants. In order to remove a putative interference of pitch variations with beat extraction, the same participants were tested with percussive rhythms in Experiment 2 and showed a similar impairment. Furthermore, musical pitch and beat processing abilities were correlated. These new results highlight the tight connection between melody and rhythm in music processing that can nevertheless dissociate in some individuals., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: There is limited research in population-based studies on auditory processing. The purpose of this work is to determine the prevalence of auditory processing impairment in the Jackson Heart Study cohort and to identify potential relationships with cardiometabolic risk factors., Study Design: Cross-sectional study., Setting: Jackson Heart Study in Jackson, Mississippi., Subjects: Participants of an all-African American cardiovascular study cohort (n = 1314)., Methods: The Quick Speech-in-Noise and Dichotic Digits, Double Pairs tests were used to assess auditory processing. Logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine how participants' cardiometabolic risk factors and audiologic characteristics were associated with speech perception in noise and binaural integration., Results: Quick Speech-in-Noise and Dichotic Digits, Double Pairs testing showed a prevalence of auditory processing impairment in 69% and 71% of the cohort, respectively, which was significantly related to age, hearing thresholds, sex, and education level. With covariate adjustment in statistical models for age, sex, pure tone average, and education level, waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, and hypertension were statistically predictive of auditory processing impairment ( P < .05)., Conclusion: The results suggest a high prevalence of auditory processing deficits in the Jackson Heart Study cohort. In addition, cardiometabolic and audiologic factors show a statistically significant independent relationship with auditory impairment measures.

This study investigated whether there is a co-occurrence between developmental dyslexia and congenital amusia in adults. First, a database of online musical tests on 18,000 participants was analysed. Self-reported dyslexic participants performed significantly lower on melodic skills than matched controls, suggesting a possible link between reading and musical disorders. In order to test this relationship more directly, we evaluated 20 participants diagnosed with dyslexia, 16 participants diagnosed with amusia, and their matched controls, with a whole battery of literacy (reading, fluency, spelling), phonological (verbal working memory, phonological awareness) and musical tests (melody, rhythm and metre perception, incidental memory). Amusia was diagnosed in six (30%) dyslexic participants and reading difficulties were found in four (25%) amusic participants. Thus, the results point to a moderate comorbidity between amusia and dyslexia. Further research will be needed to determine what factors at the neural and/or cognitive levels are responsible for this co-occurrence.

Objectives: This paper compares structured history, auditory processing abilities and neuropsychological findings of children with functional hearing loss (FHL) to those with suspected auditory processing disorder without FHL (control). The main aim was to evaluate the value of a holistic assessment protocol for FHL used in a routine pediatric audiology clinic. The protocol incorporated a commercially available test battery for auditory processing disorder (APD), non-verbal intelligence (NVIQ) and tools to screen for common co-existing neurodevelopmental conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), language impairment (LI) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The outcome of such holistic assessment was expected to help in understanding the nature of FHL and to provide individualized support to mitigate their difficulties., Methods: This retrospective study compared two groups, 40 children (M = 17, F = 23) in each group between seven and sixteen years of age, one group with a history of FHL and the other with suspected APD without FHL (control). The groups were matched against age, gender, hand use, diagnosis of APD or non-APD (31 with APD and 9 without APD in each group) and non-verbal intelligence. All the children were healthy English speaking children attending mainstream schools with no middle or inner ear abnormalities. Structured history was obtained from parents regarding different nonacademic and academic concerns. The SCAN-3:C and SCAN-3:A test batteries were used to assess auditory processing abilities; Lucid Ability test for NVIQ; Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) for language ability; Swanson Nolan and Pelham-IV Rating Scale (SNAP-IV) for ADHD; and the manual dexterity components of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2) as a screening tool for DCD., Results: About 60% of children in both the groups had concerns regarding listening in noisy background. In the history, poor attention was reported in 45% of children in the FHL group compared to 82.5% in the control group (p < 0.01). Hyperacusis was present in 35% of children in the FHL group and in 62% of children in the control group (p < 0.05). Concerns about overall academic abilities were present in 59% of children in the FHL group and 75% of the controls (p > 0.05). Only 15% of children in the FHL group had concerns with numeracy skills in contrast to 41% of the controls (p < 0.05). Significantly fewer (p < 0.01) children in the FHL group (41%) received additional support at school than the controls (75%). Fewer children performed poorly in Filtered Words (FW) test of the SCAN-3 batteries, 30% in the FHL group and 17.5% in the control group, in contrast to Auditory Figure Ground 0 (AFG0), 85% in FHL and 80% in the control group. The number of children performing poorly in AFG0 was significantly higher compared to all the other SCAN-3 tests in FHL (P < 0.05), in contrast to FW and Competing Sentences (CS) only in the control group (p < 0.05). The control group had higher prevalence of atypical ear advantage (AEA) in left directed Competing Words (CW) (32.5%) and Time Compressed Sentences (TCS) (32.5%) compared to FW (7.5%). In contrast, FHL group had higher prevalence of AEA in AFG0 (48.7%) compared to CS (21%). High proportions of children in both the groups had LI (80% in FHL and 82.5% in the control group), with significantly lower (p < 0.05) levels of ADHD symptoms in the FHL group (39.5%) compared to the control group (72.5%). Impaired manual dexterity was present in 30.7% of children in FHL group and 47.5% in the controls., Conclusions: The prevalences of APD and language impairment are high compared to ADHD symptoms in children with FHL, and holistic assessment is recommended. Despite some similarities in the auditory and neuropsychological profiles between children with FHL and those with suspected APD without FHL some differences were noted. The results suggest that children with FHL have genuine difficulties that need to be identified and addressed. Future research is required to identify the neural pathways which could explain the similarities and dissimilarities between the two groups., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show characteristic differences in auditory processing. To clarify the mechanisms underlying communication impairment in ASD, we examined auditory language processing with both anatomical and functional methods., Methods: We assessed the language abilities of adolescents with ASD and typically developing (TD) adolescents, and analyzed the surface-based morphometric structure between the groups using magnetic resonance imaging. Furthermore, we measured cortical responses to an auditory word comprehension task with magnetoencephalography and performed network-based statistics using the phase locking values., Results: We observed no structural differences between the groups. However, the volume of the left ventral central sulcus (vCS) showed a significant correlation with linguistic scores in ASD. Moreover, adolescents with ASD showed weaker cortical activation in the left vCS and superior temporal sulcus. Furthermore, these regions showed differential correlations with linguistic scores between the groups. Moreover, the ASD group had an atypical gamma band (25-40 Hz) network centered on the left vCS., Conclusions: Adolescents with ASD showed atypical responses on the auditory word comprehension task and functional brain differences., Significance: Our results suggest that phonological processing and gamma band cortical activity play a critical role in auditory language processing-related pathophysiology in adolescents with ASD., (Copyright © 2018 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The proper course of speech development heavily influences the cognitive and personal development of children. It is a condition for achieving preschool and school successes - it facilitates socializing and expressing feelings and needs. Impairment of language and its development in children represents a major diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for physicians and therapists. Early diagnosis of coexisting deficits and starting the therapy influence the therapeutic success. One of the basic diagnostic tests for children suffering from specific language impairment (SLI) is audiometry, thus far referred to as a hearing test. Auditory processing is just as important as a proper hearing threshold. Therefore, diagnosis of central auditory disorder may be a valuable supplementation of diagnosis of language impairment. Early diagnosis and implementation of appropriate treatment may contribute to an effective language therapy.

Objectives: To compare the sensitivity and specificity of Auditory Figure Ground sub-tests of the SCAN-3 battery, using signal to noise ratio (SNR) of +8 dB (AFG+8) and 0 dB (AFG0), in identifying auditory processing disorder (APD). A secondary objective was to evaluate any difference in auditory processing (AP) between children with symptoms of inattention versus combined sub-types of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)., Methods: Data from 201 children, aged 6 to 16 years (mean: 10 years 6 months, SD: 2 years 8 months), who were assessed for suspected APD were reviewed retrospectively. The outcomes of the SCAN-3 APD test battery, Swanson Nolan and Pelham-IV parental rating (SNAP-IV) and Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) were analysed., Results: AFG0 had a sensitivity of 56.3% and specificity of 100% in identifying children performing poorly in at least two of six SCAN-3 sub-tests or one of the two questionnaires, in contrast to 42.1% and 80% respectively for AFG+8. Impaired AP was mostly associated with symptoms of ADHD and /or language impairment (LI). LI was present in 92.9% of children with ADHD symptoms. Children with symptoms of combined ADHD plus LI performed significantly poorly (p < 0.05) compared to inattention ADHD plus LI in Filtered Words (FW) sub-test, but not in the rest of the SCAN-3 sub-tests., Conclusion: Speech in noise tests using SNR of 0 dB is better than +8 dB in assessing APD. The better FW performance of the inattention ADHD plus LI group can be speculated to be related to known difference in activity in a neural network between different sub-types of ADHD. The findings of the study and existing literature suggest that neural networks connecting the cerebral hemispheres, basal ganglia and cerebellum are involved in APD, ADHD and LI., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background  This study aimed to investigate central auditory processing performance in children with migraine and compared with controls without headache. Methods  Twenty-eight children of both sexes, aged between 8 and 12 years, diagnosed with migraine with and without aura, and a control group of the same age range and with no headache history, were included. Gaps-in-noise (GIN), duration pattern test (DPT), synthetic sentence identification (SSI) test, and nonverbal dichotic test (NVDT) were used to assess central auditory processing performance. Results  Children with migraine performed significantly worse in DPT, SSI test, and NVDT when compared with controls without headache; however, no significant differences were found in the GIN test. Conclusions  Children with migraine demonstrate impairment in the physiologic mechanism of temporal processing and selective auditory attention. In our short communication, migraine could be related to impaired central auditory processing in children., (Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.)

Song and speech represent two auditory categories the brain usually classifies fairly easily. Functionally, this classification ability may depend to a great extent on characteristic features of pitch patterns present in song melody and speech prosody. Anatomically, the temporal lobe (TL) has been discussed as playing a prominent role in the processing of both. Here we tested individuals with congenital amusia and patients with unilateral left and right TL lesions in their ability to categorize song and speech. In a forced-choice paradigm, specifically designed auditory stimuli representing sung, spoken and "ambiguous" stimuli (being perceived as "halfway between" song and speech), had to be classified as either "song" or "speech". Congenital amusics and TL patients, contrary to controls, exhibited a surprising bias to classifying the ambiguous stimuli as "song" despite their apparent deficit to correctly process features typical for song. This response bias possibly reflects a strategy where, based on available context information (here: forced choice for either speech or song), classification of non-processable items may be achieved through elimination of processable classes. This speech-based strategy masks the pitch processing deficit in congenital amusics and TL lesion patients.

Congenital amusia is a neuro-developmental disorder of music perception and production. The hypothesis is that the musical deficits arise from altered pitch processing, with impairments in pitch discrimination (i.e., pitch change detection, pitch direction discrimination and identification) and short-term memory. The present review article focuses on the deficit of short-term memory for pitch. Overall, the data discussed here suggest impairments at each level of processing in short-term memory tasks; starting with the encoding of the pitch information and the creation of the adequate memory trace, the retention of the pitch traces over time as well as the recollection and comparison of the stored information with newly incoming information. These impairments have been related to altered brain responses in a distributed fronto-temporal network, associated with decreased connectivity between these structures, as well as in abnormalities in the connectivity between the two auditory cortices. In contrast, amusic participants׳ short-term memory abilities for verbal material are preserved. These findings show that short-term memory deficits in congenital amusia are specific to pitch, suggesting a pitch-memory system that is, at least partly, separated from verbal memory. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Auditory working memory., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Congenital amusia is a lifelong deficit in music perception thought to reflect an underlying impairment in the perception and memory of pitch. The neural basis of amusic impairments is actively debated. Some prior studies have suggested that amusia stems from impaired connectivity between auditory and frontal cortex. However, it remains possible that impairments in pitch coding within auditory cortex also contribute to the disorder, in part because prior studies have not measured responses from the cortical regions most implicated in pitch perception in normal individuals. We addressed this question by measuring fMRI responses in 11 subjects with amusia and 11 age- and education-matched controls to a stimulus contrast that reliably identifies pitch-responsive regions in normal individuals: harmonic tones versus frequency-matched noise. Our findings demonstrate that amusic individuals with a substantial pitch perception deficit exhibit clusters of pitch-responsive voxels that are comparable in extent, selectivity, and anatomical location to those of control participants. We discuss possible explanations for why amusics might be impaired at perceiving pitch relations despite exhibiting normal fMRI responses to pitch in their auditory cortex: (1) individual neurons within the pitch-responsive region might exhibit abnormal tuning or temporal coding not detectable with fMRI, (2) anatomical tracts that link pitch-responsive regions to other brain areas (e.g., frontal cortex) might be altered, and (3) cortical regions outside of pitch-responsive cortex might be abnormal. The ability to identify pitch-responsive regions in individual amusic subjects will make it possible to ask more precise questions about their role in amusia in future work., (Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/362986-09$15.00/0.)

Chronic cannabis use may interact with factors, such as age of onset of cannabis use, family history, and genetic factors, to elicit schizophrenia (SZ)-like symptoms, including sensory and cognitive deficits. However, evidence of a relationship between cannabis use and cognitive impairment is confounded by concomitant use of tobacco. The objective of this study was to compare tobacco-naïve cannabis users with individuals without a history of tobacco/cannabis use on the auditory mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential (ERP), a neural measure of auditory deviance detection which is diminished in SZ. An exploratory arm of the study, conducted within a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled design, examined the acute effects of nicotine gum (6mg) on MMN in cannabis users. MMN was recorded in response to 5 deviant stimuli within an optimal MMN paradigm in 44 healthy, non-tobacco smoking volunteers aged 18-26. Cannabis users (n=21) started smoking cannabis prior to age 17, at least 1 joint per month. To examine the effects of chronicity, users were grouped into relatively heavy long-term (HLT; n=11) users and light short-term (LST; n=10) users. Impaired deviance detection was shown in cannabis users vs. nonusers as reflected by a smaller MMN to duration deviants. Chronicity of use was also associated with MMN alterations, as HLTs displayed a reduced duration and gap MMN vs. LSTs. Compared with placebo, nicotine treatment enhanced select MMN deviants in cannabis user subgroups. As deficits associated with early and persistent cannabis use are similar to those seen in SZ, these dose-dependant disturbances in early sensory processing with cannabis use may be one cognitive pathway which mediates an increased risk for SZ in vulnerable youth, and be influenced by concurrent cigarette smoking behavior., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Mismatch negativity, an electrophysiological measure, evaluates the brain's capacity to discriminate sounds, regardless of attentional and behavioral capacity. Thus, this auditory event-related potential is promising in the study of the neurophysiological basis underlying auditory processing., Objective: To investigate complex acoustic signals (speech) encoded in the auditory nervous system of children with specific language impairment and compare with children with auditory processing disorders and typical development through the mismatch negativity paradigm., Methods: It was a prospective study. 75 children (6-12 years) participated in this study: 25 children with specific language impairment, 25 with auditory processing disorders, and 25 with typical development. Mismatch negativity was obtained by subtracting from the waves obtained by the stimuli /ga/ (frequent) and /da/ (rare). Measures of mismatch negativity latency and two amplitude measures were analyzed., Results: It was possible to verify an absence of mismatch negativity in 16% children with specific language impairment and 24% children with auditory processing disorders. In the comparative analysis, auditory processing disorders and specific language impairment showed higher latency values and lower amplitude values compared to typical development., Conclusion: These data demonstrate changes in the automatic discrimination of crucial acoustic components of speech sounds in children with specific language impairment and auditory processing disorders. It could indicate problems in physiological processes responsible for ensuring the discrimination of acoustic contrasts in pre-attentional and pre-conscious levels, contributing to poor perception., (Copyright © 2015 Associação Brasileira de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia Cérvico-Facial. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.)

Objective: This study investigated whether young adults (between 18 and 30 years at the time of the project) who were assessed for auditory processing disorder (APD) in childhood (between 7 and 16 years) experience persistence of listening and communication difficulties., Design: Participants completed a mixed methods questionnaire focusing on common areas of complaint in APD and two open-ended questions exploring participants' past and present experiences with listening and communication difficulties., Study Sample: Ninety-seven of the 722 potential participants returned completed questionnaires, of whom 66 had been diagnosed with APD (APD group) at the time of their auditory processing assessment and 31 had not met diagnostic criteria (NAPD group) at that time., Results: Substantial commonality was noted in the reported listening and communication difficulties between the APD and NAPD participants. Volunteered comments aggregated into four major content themes which included: listening and communication difficulties; participants' sense of self; change; and participation. Members of the APD group reported greater communication difficulty than NAPD group members, irrespective of environmental listening conditions., Conclusions: Young adults with a prior referral for, and in some cases a diagnosis of, APD as children continue to experience auditory processing difficulties across a range of daily situations.

Objective: To assess the relative effectiveness of an interdisciplinary, family-centered, tertiary-care pediatric weight management program for the treatment of patients with and without cognitive disabilities (CD)., Methods: Retrospective analysis of the clinical database of a tertiary-care pediatric weight management clinic (n = 453), extracting data from electronic health records including longitudinal change in weight status (body mass index [BMI] z-score) and frequency of attrition from treatment. Upon review of medical records, children enrolled in the treatment program were classified as having no CD (n = 342) or CD (n = 111)., Results: At baseline, there were no between-group differences in BMI or BMI z-score. After 4 months of treatment, 66% (299) of patients remained enrolled, and complete case data were available for 219 children in final analyses. There were no statistically significant differences in attrition between the 2 groups (no CD vs CD). Mean change in BMI z-score across all groups was -0.03 ± 0.13 (P < .001). Change in BMI z-score was significantly greater among patients with CD (-0.07 ± 0.15) compared to those without CD (-0.03 ± 0.12) (difference 0.04, 95% confidence interval 0.005-0.08, P = .029). These change estimates were observed after adjusting for processes potentially associated with attrition., Conclusions: Children with CD treated in an interdisciplinary, family-centered obesity clinic had similar or better outcomes compared to peers without CD. This success may be attributable to the patient-centered nature of this behavioral weight management program, which focused on leveraging the unique strengths and capabilities of each individual patient and family., (Copyright © 2015 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Palinacousis is derived from the Greek words palin, which means again or anew, and acousis, meaning hearing. It was first described by Jacobs et al. (1971), who defined the phenomenon as "an auditory illusion of perseveration or persistence of sound impressions for seconds, minutes, or hours after the cessation of auditory stimulation." The auditory perseveration does not occur spontaneously but is triggered by something in the environment. A limited number of cases have been described in the literature. This chapter describes the anatomic abnormalities that may cause this phenomenon, the clinical characteristics that define palinacousis, differential diagnosis and potential etiologies., (© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Specific Language Impairment (SLI) affects about 7-15 % of children of school age and according to the currently accepted diagnostic criteria, it is presumed that these children do not suffer from hearing impairment. The goal of this work was to assess anomalies of central auditory processes in a group of children diagnosed with specific language impairment. Material consisted of 200 children aged 7-10 years (100 children in the study group and 100 hundred in the control group). Selected psychoacoustic tests (Frequency Pattern Test - FPT, Duration Pattern Test - DPT, Dichotic Digit Test - DDT, Time Compressed Sentence Test - CST, Gap Detection Test - GDT) were performed in all children. Results were subject to statistical analysis. It was observed that mean results obtained in individual age groups in the study group are significantly lower than in the control group. Based on the conducted studies we may conclude that children with SLI suffer from disorders of some higher auditory functions, which substantiates the diagnosis of hearing disorders according to the AHSA (American Hearing and Speech Association) guidelines. Use of sound-based, not verbal tests, eliminates the probability that observed problems with perception involve only perception of speech, therefore do not signify central hearing disorders, but problems with understanding of speech. Lack of literature data on the significance of FPT, DPT, DDT, CST and GDT tests in children with specific language impairment precludes comparison of acquired results and makes them unique.

It is still unclear whether phonological processing deficits are the underlying cause of developmental dyslexia, or rather a consequence of basic auditory processing impairments. To avoid methodological confounds, in the current study the same task and stimuli of comparable complexity were used to investigate both phonological and basic auditory (temporal and spectral) processing in dyslexia. German dyslexic children (Grades 3 and 4) were compared to age- and grade-matched controls in a vowel length discrimination task with three experimental conditions: In a phonological condition, natural vowels were used, differing both with respect to temporal and spectral information (in German, vowel length is phonemic, and vowel length differences are characterized by both temporal and spectral information). In a temporal condition, spectral information differentiating between the two vowels of a pair was eliminated, whereas in a spectral condition, temporal differences were removed. As performance measure, the sensitivity index d' was computed. At the group level, dyslexic children's performance was inferior to that of controls for phonological as well as temporal and spectral vowel length discrimination. At an individual level, nearly half of the dyslexic sample was characterized by deficits in all three conditions, but there were also some children showing no deficits at all. These results reveal on the one hand that phonological processing deficits in dyslexia may stem from impairments in processing temporal and spectral information in the speech signal. On the other hand they indicate, however, that not all dyslexic children might be characterized by phonological or auditory processing deficits., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: It is crucial to understand the complex processing of acoustic stimuli along the auditory pathway; comprehension of this complex processing can facilitate our understanding of the processes that underlie normal and altered human communication., Aim: To investigate the performance and lateralization effects on auditory processing assessment in children with specific language impairment (SLI), relating these findings to those obtained in children with auditory processing disorder (APD) and typical development (TD)., Material and Methods: Prospective study. Seventy-five children, aged 6-12 years, were separated in three groups: 25 children with SLI, 25 children with APD, and 25 children with TD. All went through the following tests: speech-in-noise test, Dichotic Digit test and Pitch Pattern Sequencing test., Results: The effects of lateralization were observed only in the SLI group, with the left ear presenting much lower scores than those presented to the right ear. The inter-group analysis has shown that in all tests children from APD and SLI groups had significantly poorer performance compared to TD group. Moreover, SLI group presented worse results than APD group., Conclusion: This study has shown, in children with SLI, an inefficient processing of essential sound components and an effect of lateralization. These findings may indicate that neural processes (required for auditory processing) are different between auditory processing and speech disorders.

Purpose: To examine how language production interacts with speech motor and gross and fine motor skill in children with specific language impairment (SLI)., Method: Eleven children with SLI and 12 age-matched peers (4-6 years) produced structurally primed sentences containing particles and prepositions. Utterances were analyzed for errors and for articulatory duration and variability. Standard measures of motor, language, and articulation skill were also obtained., Results: Sentences containing particles, as compared with prepositions, were less likely to be produced in a priming task and were longer in duration, suggesting increased difficulty with this syntactic structure. Children with SLI demonstrated higher articulatory variability and poorer gross and fine motor skills compared with aged-matched controls. Articulatory variability was correlated with generalized gross and fine motor performance., Conclusions: Children with SLI show co-occurring speech motor and generalized motor deficits. Current theories do not fully account for the present findings, though the procedural deficit hypothesis provides a framework for interpreting overlap among language and motor domains.

Recent neuropsychological studies of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have demonstrated that some patients have aphasic symptoms, including impaired syntactic comprehension. However, it is not known if syntactic comprehension disorder is related to executive and visuospatial dysfunction. In this study, we evaluated syntactic comprehension using the Syntax Test for Aphasia (STA) auditory comprehension task, frontal executive function using the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), visuospatial function using Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM), and dementia using the Hasegawa Dementia Scale-Revised (HDS-R) in 25 patients with ALS. Of the 25 patients, 18 (72%) had syntactic comprehension disorder (STA score < IV), nine (36%) had frontal executive dysfunction (FAB score < 14), six (24%) had visuospatial dysfunction (RCPM score < 24), and none had dementia (HDS-R score < 20). Nine of the 18 patients with syntactic comprehension disorder (50%) passed the FAB and RCPM. Although sample size was small, these patients had a low STA score but normal FAB and RCPM score. All patients with bulbar onset ALS had syntactic comprehension disorder. These results indicate that it might be necessary to assess syntactic comprehension in patients with bulbar onset ALS. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the pathological continuum of ALS.

Purpose: The scope of this study was to trace central auditory processing issues in patients with first-episode psychosis using a psychoacoustic test battery approach., Method: Patients (n = 17) and volunteer control subjects (n = 17) with no personal or family history of schizophrenia were included in the study on the basis of normal hearing sensitivity. The authors implemented a central auditory processing battery consisting of monaural and binaural tests with verbal and nonverbal stimuli., Results: Perceptual deficits in both nonverbal and verbal auditory stimuli are reported in this study, with temporal central auditory processing deficits and a mean left-ear advantage documented in the patient group., Conclusion: This study points to the possibility of the existence of central auditory processing deficits in first-episode psychosis leading to schizophrenia. Audiologists should be aware of the psychiatric research pointing to enhanced verbal memory as a result of auditory training, linking bottom-up remediation with top-down improvement.

The definition of an auditory processing disorder (APD) is based on impairments of auditory functions. APDs are disturbances in processes central to hearing that cannot be explained by comorbidities such as attention deficit or language comprehension disorders. Symptoms include difficulties in differentiation and identification of changes in time, structure, frequency and intensity of sounds; problems with sound localization and lateralization, as well as poor speech comprehension in adverse listening environments and dichotic situations. According to the German definition of APD (as opposed to central auditory processing disorder, CAPD), peripheral hearing loss or cognitive impairment also exclude APD. The diagnostic methodology comprises auditory function tests and the required diagnosis of exclusion. APD is diagnosed if a patient's performance is two standard deviations below the normal mean in at least two areas of auditory processing. The treatment approach for an APD depends on the patient's particular deficits. Training, compensatory strategies and improvement of the listening conditions can all be effective.

The goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of the relationship between non-verbal auditory disorders and developmental dyslexia. This question has led to conflicting results in the literature, which we argued might be due to a failure to consider the heterogeneity of dyslexic profiles. This study included three groups of adult participants: unimpaired readers and dyslexic readers with or without a phonological deficit. Auditory temporal processing deficits, as measured by stream segregation thresholds, were present in most dyslexic participants with phonological disorders. In contrast, most dyslexic participants with preserved phonological skills had normal auditory stream segregation thresholds. Overall, the present study leads to a better understanding of the relationship between phonological and sequential auditory processing disorders in developmental dyslexia. In addition, it demonstrates for the first time the importance of considering the heterogeneity of individual cognitive profiles when investigating the role of auditory deficits in developmental dyslexia., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Unlabelled: Learning disorders are often magnified by auditory processing disorders (APD)., Objective: This paper aims to verify whether individuals with reading and writing disorders and P300 latencies above the average also present altered Staggered Spondaic Word (SSW) and speech-in-noise test results suggestive of APD., Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional cohort study. Twenty-one individuals with reading and writing disorders aged between 7 and 14 years were enrolled., Results: All subjects had normal findings on ENT examination, audiological tests, and brainstem auditory evoked potentials. The average P300 latency (334,25 ms) of all patients was picked as a cutoff point to divide the subjects into two groups: group A with latencies above 335 ms, and group B with latencies below 335 ms. Individuals in group A underwent SSW and speech-in-noise testing., Conclusion: Altered results in the SSW and speech-in-noise tests suggestive of APD were found in the group of individuals with reading and writing disorders with P300 latencies above 335 ms.

There have been several proposals for the classification of language disorders in children; some of them are based on the desire to differentiate in terms of its possible cause, while others are based on the criteria for symptoms grouping ('syndromes'), in order to facilitate the diagnostic process and orientate some intervention programs. In the first part, there is an analysis of the advantages and limitations of the most popular classifications, pointing to the inaccuracy on description basis and to the inability to distinguish between several subgroups. In the second part, it is analysed the clinical purpose of using these nomenclatures. Finally, the idea of using a clinical tool is proposed, in order to include the severity criteria of symptoms in the differential diagnosis.

Purpose: This study compared the temporal processing performance of children with phonological disorders submitted to formal and informal auditory training., Methods: Fifteen subjects with phonological disorder (pure tone thresholds ≤20 dBHL from 0.50 to 4 kHz, and age between 7 years and 10 years and 11 months) were evaluated, divided into three groups:, Control Group: five subjects (mean age 9.1 years) without auditory processing disorder, who passed through two evaluations of the auditory processing at intervals of six to eight weeks and without any intervention; Formal Training Group with five subjects (average 8.3 years) with auditory processing disorder submitted to eight sessions of formal training; and Informal Training Group, with five subjects (average 8.1 years) with auditory processing disorder submitted to eight sessions of informal training., Results: After eight sessions the formal training group showed an improvement of 8% and the informal training group of 22.5% in comparison with the pitch pattern sequence test. For the duration pattern sequence test, the average of the formal training group improved by 12.9% and the informal training group by 18.7%. There was no statistical difference between the means obtained by both groups after intervention, neither in the pitch pattern nor in the duration pattern sequence test., Conclusion: Although the results did not present significant differences, this pilot study suggests that both formal and informal trainings provide improvement in the temporal processing abilities of children with phonological and auditory processing disorders.

Most research concerning the pathology of autism is focused on the search for central abnormalities that account for the production of symptoms. We, however, instead of looking at muscular and auditory features as merely associated manifestations, propose that they are somatic contributors by which some of the main clinical features of autism might be explained. Evidence suggests that muscles affect emotional experience. We think certain muscular dysfunctioning can impair communication and social interaction, and create stereotypic behavior, giving rise to the diagnostic features of autism. Furthermore, because speech is synchronized with facial movements and voice is controlled mainly through auditory feedback, a distortion of auditory feedback could disrupt voice, which in turn might cause parallel abnormal facial muscle functioning., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: The claim that speech perception abilities are impaired in dyslexia was investigated in a group of 62 children with dyslexia and 51 average readers matched in age., Method: To test whether there was robust evidence of speech perception deficits in children with dyslexia, speech perception in noise and quiet was measured using 8 different tasks involving the identification and discrimination of a complex and highly natural synthetic "bee"-"pea" contrast (copy synthesized from natural models) and the perception of naturally produced words., Results: Children with dyslexia, on average, performed more poorly than did average readers in the synthetic syllables identification task in quiet and in across-category discrimination (but not when tested using an adaptive procedure). They did not differ from average readers on 2 tasks of word recognition in noise or identification of synthetic syllables in noise. For all tasks, a majority of individual children with dyslexia performed within norms. Finally, speech perception generally did not correlate with pseudoword reading or phonological processing--the core skills related to dyslexia., Conclusions: On the tasks and speech stimuli that the authors used, most children with dyslexia did not appear to show a consistent deficit in speech perception.

Malformations of cortical development have been described in children and families with language-learning impairment. The objective of this study was to assess the auditory processing information in children with language-learning impairment in the presence or absence of a malformation of cortical development in the auditory processing areas. We selected 32 children (19 males), aged eight to 15 years, divided into three groups: Group I comprised 11 children with language-learning impairment and bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria, Group II comprised 10 children with language-learning impairment and normal MRI, and Group III comprised 11 normal children. Behavioral auditory tests, such as the Random Gap Detection Test and Digits Dichotic Test were performed. Statistical analysis was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney test, with a level of significance of 0.05. The results revealed a statistically significant difference among the groups. Our data showed abnormalities in auditory processing of children in Groups I and II when compared with the control group, with children in Group I being more affected than children in Group II. Our data showed that the presence of a cortical malformation correlates with a worse performance in some tasks of auditory processing function., (Copyright © 2010 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Schizophrenia patients have vocal affect (prosody) deficits that are treatment resistant and associated with negative symptoms and poor outcome. The neural correlates of this dysfunction are unclear. Prior study has suggested that schizophrenia vocal affect perception deficits stem from an inability to use acoustic cues, notably pitch, in decoding emotion., Methods: Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in 24 schizophrenia patients and 28 healthy control subjects, during the performance of a four-choice (happiness, fear, anger, neutral) vocal affect identification task in which items for each emotion varied parametrically in affective salient acoustic cue levels., Results: We observed that parametric increases in cue levels in schizophrenia failed to produce the same identification rate increases as in control subjects. These deficits correlated with diminished reciprocal activation changes in superior temporal and inferior frontal gyri and reduced temporo-frontal connectivity. Task activation also correlated with independent measures of pitch perception and negative symptom severity., Conclusions: These findings illustrate the interplay between sensory and higher-order cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. Sensory contributions to vocal affect deficits also suggest that this neurobehavioral marker could be targeted by pharmacological or behavioral remediation of acoustic feature discrimination., (Copyright © 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Humans move to the beat of music. Despite the ubiquity and early emergence of this response, some individuals report being unable to feel the beat in music. We report a sample of people without special training, all of whom were proficient at perceiving and producing the musical beat with the exception of one case ("Mathieu"). Motion capture and psychophysical tests revealed that people synchronized full-body motion to music and detected when a model dancer was not in time with the music. In contrast, Mathieu failed to period- and phase-lock his movement to the beat of most music pieces, and failed to detect most asynchronies of the model dancer. Mathieu's near-normal synchronization with a metronome suggests that the deficit concerns beat finding in the context of music. These results point to time as having a distinct neurobiological origin from pitch in music processing., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Although children with language impairments, including those associated with reading, usually demonstrate deficits in phonological processing, there is minimal agreement as to the source of those deficits. This study examined two problems hypothesized to be possible sources: either poor auditory sensitivity to speech-relevant acoustic properties, mainly formant transitions, or enhanced masking of those properties. Adults and 8-year-olds with and without phonological processing deficits (PPD) participated. Children with PPD demonstrated weaker abilities than children with typical language development (TLD) in reading, sentence recall, and phonological awareness. Dependent measures were word recognition, discrimination of spectral glides, and phonetic judgments based on spectral and temporal cues. All tasks were conducted in quiet and in noise. Children with PPD showed neither poorer auditory sensitivity nor greater masking than adults and children with TLD, but they did demonstrate an unanticipated deficit in category formation for nonspeech sounds. These results suggest that these children may have an underlying deficit in perceptually organizing sensory information to form coherent categories., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Unlabelled: Speech understanding disorders in the elderly may be due to peripheral or central auditory dysfunctions. Asymmetry of results in dichotic testing increases with age, and may reflect on a lack of inter-hemisphere transmission and cognitive decline., Aim: To investigate auditory processing of aged people with no hearing complaints., Study Design: clinical prospective., Materials and Methods: Twenty-two voluntary individuals, aged between 55 and 75 years, were evaluated. They reported no hearing complaints and had maximal auditory thresholds of 40 dB HL until 4 KHz, 80% of minimal speech recognition scores and peripheral symmetry between the ears. We used two kinds of tests: speech in noise and dichotic alternated dissyllables (SSW). Results were compared between males and females, right and left ears and between age groups., Results: There were no significant differences between genders, in both tests. Their Left ears showed worse results, in the competitive condition of SSW. Individuals aged 65 or older had poorer performances than those aged 55 to 64., Conclusion: Central auditory tests showed worse performance with aging. The employment of a dichotic test in the auditory evaluation setting in the elderly may help in the early identification of degenerative processes, which are common among these patients.

Objective: To analyze the effect of nonverbal auditory training on reading and phonological awareness tasks in children with dyslexia and the effect of age in relation to post-training learning considering the ages from 7 to 14., Methods: In experiment 1, one group with dyslexia (total = 12) was trained and compared with a group of untrained dyslexic subjects (total = 28). In experiment 2, the performance of the trained dyslexic group (total = 18) was compared at three different moments: 2 months before, at the beginning, and at the end of training. Training was carried out for 2 months using a computer program responsible for training discrimination skills., Results: The group receiving nonverbal auditory training demonstrated significant improvements (mainly for the group from 7 to 10 years old), not only in the nonverbal auditory skills trained (p < 0.001), but also in phonological awareness syllable tasks (synthesis, segmentation, manipulation and syllable transposition) in experiment 1 (p < 0.003), and phonemic tasks (p < 0.001) and text reading (p < 0.001) in experiment 2., Conclusion: The results suggest a link between verbal and nonverbal skills, in addition to corroborating studies regarding the existence of a critical learning period., (Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Background: Children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), such as children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), often show auditory processing deficits related to their overarching language impairment. Auditory training programs such as Fast ForWord Language may potentially alleviate these deficits through training-induced improvements in auditory processing., Methods: To assess the impact of auditory training on auditory function in children with ASD, brainstem and cortical responses to speech sounds presented in quiet and noise were collected from five children with ASD who completed Fast ForWord training., Results: Relative to six control children with ASD who did not complete Fast ForWord, training-related changes were found in brainstem response timing (three children) and pitch-tracking (one child), and cortical response timing (all five children) after Fast ForWord use., Conclusions: These results provide an objective indication of the benefit of training on auditory function for some children with ASD.

Background: Comparison of (central) auditory processing disorders in children with and without dyslexia., Aim: To compare the (central) auditory processing disorders in Brazilian children with and without dyslexia using speech in noise, dichotic digits and pattern of frequency tests., Method: Forty-five children with ages ranging between 7:0 and 12:11 years were assessed; twenty children composed the dyslexic group and twenty composed the (Central) auditory processing disorder group. The tests used involved closing aural, auditory figure-ground and temporal ordering abilities., Results: Individuals of the (Central) auditory processing disorder group presented a higher alteration probability in the speech in noise and dichotic digits tests than those from the dyslexic group., Conclusion: Subjects from the dyslexic group presented different patterns of (central) auditory processing disorder, with greater alteration in the tests that evaluate the temporal processing when compared to the tests that evaluate other auditory abilities.

The use of binaural pitch stimuli to test for the presence of binaural auditory impairment in reading-disabled subjects has so far led to contradictory outcomes. While some studies found that a majority of dyslexic subjects was unable to perceive binaural pitch, others obtained a clear response of dyslexic listeners to Huggins' pitch (HP). The present study clarified whether impaired binaural pitch perception is found in dyslexia. Results from a pitch contour identification test, performed in 31 dyslexic listeners and 31 matched controls, clearly showed that dyslexics perceived HP as well as the controls. Both groups also showed comparable results with a similar-sounding, but monaurally detectable, pitch-evoking stimulus. However, nine of the dyslexic subjects were found to have difficulty identifying pitch contours both in the binaural and the monaural conditions. The ability of subjects to correctly identify pitch contours was found to be significantly correlated to measures of frequency discrimination. This correlation may be attributed to the similarity of the experimental tasks and probably reflects impaired cognitive mechanisms related to auditory memory or auditory attention rather than impaired low-level auditory processing per se.

Objectives/hypothesis: Describe the clinical presentation and treatment of a patient with central auditory processing deficiency associated with an anatomic deficit in the left superior temporal lobe., Study Design: Case report., Methods: We report a case and the treatment of an 8-year-old boy with abnormal speech development and auditory processing disorder who was found to have a large cystic lesion of his left superior temporal lobe., Results: An otherwise healthy 8-year old male presented to our department with a history of abnormal speech development. He began acquiring speech at a normal rate until 18 months of age, when he stopped speaking and reverted to unintelligible babbling. At approximately 3 years of age, he began to re-acquire speech at a normal rate, beginning where he had stopped 18 months earlier. Upon work-up, it was discovered that he had a 2.7 x 2.9 x 4.5 cm cystic lesion in the left Sylvian fissure with no associated soft tissue component. Findings were most consistent with arachnoid cyst. Central auditory processing testing was abnormal, particularly regarding the patient's ability to manage competing auditory information., Conclusions: Central auditory processing disorders are a diverse group of disorders. Regardless of etiology, management focuses on modifying those factors that most affect the individual in an attempt to enhance the access to auditory information.

Objectives: The aim is to assess the ability to discriminate words, using two psychoacoustic verbal tests of central auditory processes in Spanish: Binaural Fusion Test (BFT in its Spanish version) and Filtered Word Test (FWT in its Spanish version) in children with dyslexia and controls., Methods: One group of 40 dyslexic children was receiving therapy for dyslexia at the time of the tests. 40 children without dyslexia were selected as controls, out of 298 children who attended a public school., Results: The rate of males to females was 2/1 in the dyslexic group. The average correct answers for the BFT were 65-66% in dyslexic group and 75-80% in the control group. For the FWT they were 50-54% in the dyslexic group and 67-71% in the control group (student t <0.05)., Conclusions: These results contribute to make evident disorders in central auditory processing in children with dyslexia. We suggest using the tests with each patient in order to elaborate a rehabilitation plan.

Objective: To report the clinical and genetic study of a new Chinese family with autosomal dominant lateral temporal lobe epilepsy (ADLTE)., Methods: The living affected members underwent a full clinical, neurophysiological, electroencephalogram (EEG), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study. Genetic analysis was performed by LGI1 DNA sequence analysis., Results: The clinical feature of the patients was coincidence wall with the definition of ADLTE by International League Against Epilepsy in 2001. The living affected members had an adult or children onset of drug-responsive tonic-clonic seizures or complex partial seizures constantly preceded by auditory or visionary aura. Routine EEG revealed no focal abnormalities over both temporal regions. MRI detected no structural abnormality. Analysis of LGI1 gene showed no mutation in all affected members., Conclusion: This kindred has typical clinical manifestations of ADLTE. The pathogenesis has no association with mutation of the exons of LGI1 gene.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to survey parental report of screening signs of auditory processing problem in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children and its association with gender and co-morbidity with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and separation anxiety (SAD)., Methods: 104 children and adolescents referrals to the child and adolescent psychiatry clinic were interviewed. The auditory processing problem checklist asked parents to indicate their child's reaction to sounds. It screens signs of two aspects of auditory processing problem including hypersensitivity to sounds (HES) (or auditory defensiveness) and hyposensitivity to sound (HOS) (under-registers)., Results: The mean age of the children was 8.5 (SD=1.8). Children with ODD had significantly higher HES, HOS and the whole checklist mean scores. Subtypes of ADHD were not associated with the auditory processing problems., Conclusions: ADHD children with ODD are likely to be at a significant risk for manifesting both of the auditory processing problem including defensiveness and auditory hyposensitivity to sounds. Auditory processing problems do not differentiate different subtypes of ADHD.

Auditory processing deficit (APD) is estimated to affect 5% of school-age children and adolescents, and 30-50% of those diagnosed with learning problems. The diagnosis and indeed the existence of APD, however, remain controversial. One reason for this controversy is that the factors contributing to normal variations in auditory processing and its development are poorly understood. To address the developmental issue, we compared the performance of younger (14 yr/o) and older (18 yr/o) adolescents on frequency discrimination, backward masking detection and gap detection using an oddball paradigm. Older adolescents had lower backward masking thresholds compared with younger adolescents, but the prolonged development of thresholds was not accompanied by a corresponding increase in performance consistency. The distribution of thresholds on all three tasks did not differ between typically developing adolescents and those diagnosed with learning disabilities. A questionnaire designed to tap difficulties in daily listening situations also failed to differentiate the two groups. These findings suggest that basing the diagnosis of APD on tests conducted with the oddball procedure requires the establishment of norms from large and age specific samples. They also suggest that the development of auditory sensory acuity in the general population is longer than typically assumed.

Both language and music consist of sequences that are structured according to syntactic regularities. We used two specific event-related brain potential (ERP) components to investigate music-syntactic processing in children: the ERAN (early right anterior negativity) and the N5. The neural resources underlying these processes have been posited to overlap with those involved in the processing of linguistic syntax. Thus, we expected children with specific language impairment (SLI, which is characterized by deficient processing of linguistic syntax) to demonstrate difficulties with music-syntactic processing. Such difficulties were indeed observed in the neural correlates of music-syntactic processing: neither an ERAN nor an N5 was elicited in children with SLI, whereas both components were evoked in age-matched control children with typical language development. Moreover, the amplitudes of ERAN and N5 were correlated with subtests of a language development test. These data provide evidence for a strong interrelation between the language and the music processing system, thereby setting the ground for possible effects of musical training in SLI therapy.