Search

Key Clinical Message Chromosomal microarray (CMA) can detect pathogenic copy number variations in 15–20% of individuals with intellectual disability and in 10% of patients with autism spectrum disorders. The diagnostic rate in specific learning disorders (SLD) is unknown. Our study emphasizes the usefulness of CMA in the diagnostic workout assessment of familial SLD.

Background Perception of speech rhythm requires the auditory system to track temporal envelope fluctuations, which carry syllabic and stress information. Reduced sensitivity to rhythmic acoustic cues has been evidenced in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), impeding syllabic parsing and speech decoding. Our study investigated whether these children experience specific difficulties processing fast rate speech as compared with typically developing (TD) children. Method Sixteen French children with SLI (8–13 years old) with mainly expressive phonological disorders and with preserved comprehension and 16 age-matched TD children performed a judgment task on sentences produced 1) at normal rate, 2) at fast rate or 3) time-compressed. Sensitivity index (d′) to semantically incongruent sentence-final words was measured. Results Overall children with SLI perform significantly worse than TD children. Importantly, as revealed by the significant Group × Speech Rate interaction, children with SLI find it more challenging than TD children to process both naturally or artificially accelerated speech. The two groups do not significantly differ in normal rate speech processing. Conclusion In agreement with rhythm-processing deficits in atypical language development, our results suggest that children with SLI face difficulties adjusting to rapid speech rate. These findings are interpreted in light of temporal sampling and prosodic phrasing frameworks and of oscillatory mechanisms underlying speech perception.

International audience; Notre système cognitif est capable de s'adapter rapidement aux variations de débit de parole afin de comprendre le message. Des études suggèrent que cette adaptation active les régions prémotrices du cerveau, impliquées dans la production de parole. Cette étude examine comment les enfants présentant des troubles expressifs du langage traitent la parole produite à un débit rapide. Dix-sept enfants (8-13 ans) présentant une dysphasie expressive, appariés à des enfants contrôles, ont réalisé une tâche de jugement sémantique de phrases produites à trois débits de parole (normal, naturel rapide et compressé artificiellement). Les performances des enfants dysphasiques sont plus faibles, en termes de temps de réponse et d'indice de sensibilité (d'), que les contrôles, plus particulièrement lorsque le débit est rapide. Un déficit de perception de parole rapide semble donc exister chez ces enfants, suggérant un rôle des processus impliqués dans la production de la parole dans les processus de perception.

International audience