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Differential entrainment of neural oscillations during spoken word processing in children who stutter
Poster E66 in Poster Session E, Thursday, October 26, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Yanni Liu1, Valeria Caruso1, Shanley Treleaven1, Erica Lescht2, Amanda Hampton Wray2, Soo-Eun Chang1; 1University of Michigan, 2University of Pittsburgh
Introduction: Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects speech fluency. Stuttering can be temporarily alleviated through external rhythmic cues (e.g., metronome-timed speech); however, it remains unclear how external cues interact with intrinsic neural oscillations to support speech perception and production in stuttering. In this study, we investigated whether and how rhythmic tones preceding the spoken word would affect word perception, and whether and how children who stutter (CWS) show different patterns of oscillatory neural activity for spoken word perception. Methods: Data were acquired from 14 CWS and 34 age- and gender-matched children who do not stutter (CNS) (mean age=10.5±1.9 years, age range from 7.2-13.7 years, 7 CWS girls, 16 CNS girls). All participants spoke English as their primary language and performed within the normal range on a battery of standardized speech, language and cognitive assessments. Participants performed a spoken word perception task. Trials began with a visual cue indicating the block condition (i.e., listen), followed by four pure tones presented rhythmically at 2.5 Hz or non-rhythmically varying at 1.6 Hz – 4.5 Hz. Following the presentation of the tones, a target object (e.g., picture of a cat) was presented on the screen, along with the auditory presentation of the word spoken by a female speaker delivered via insert earphones (e.g., “cat”). EEG data were recorded from 64 scalp sensors using the Brain Vision system, and preprocessed using EEGLAB-based HAPPE pipeline. The neural oscillatory data were analyzed in the 1 second period following the target (onset of the spoken word). Specifically, power and phase consistency in the delta (rate of tone presentation, 1-3 Hz) and theta (syllable timing-related, 4-7 Hz) bands during spoken word perception were extracted and evaluated for each condition (rhythmic, non-rhythmic) and each group (CWS, CNS), to test rhythmic effects and group differences in neural activity underlying spoken word perception. Results: Time frequency decomposition revealed increased delta and theta power following the spoken word presentation in both rhythmic and non-rhythmic conditions across participants. CNS showed increased delta power in the rhythmic compared to the non-rhythmic condition in the left frontal region (p<0.05); no such difference was observed in CWS. Meanwhile, CWS showed increased delta power in the non-rhythmic compared to the rhythmic condition in the left parietal region (p<0.05), a pattern not seen in CNS. For theta power, there were no rhythmic effects or group differences. CNS showed more delta phase consistency in non-rhythmic than rhythmic conditions in the frontal central region (p<0.05) while CWS did not show rhythmicity differences in delta phase consistency. There were no rhythmic effects or group differences for theta phase consistency. Conclusions: CWS responded differently to rhythmic entrainment relative to CNS, indexed by different patterns of delta power and phase consistency during speech perception. Enhanced delta band neural oscillations are associated with better processing of acoustic and temporal markers in speech, and are attenuated in neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia. Differences in delta band neural oscillations may reflect inefficiencies in predictive timing that affect speech perception and speech motor control in CWS.
Topic Areas: Disorders: Developmental, Speech Perception