Word Recognition and Word Prediction in Preschoolers With (a Suspicion of) a Developmental Language Disorder: Evidence From Eye Tracking.

Purpose This study compares online word recognition and prediction in preschoolers with (a suspicion of) a developmental language disorder (DLD) and typically developing (TD) controls. Furthermore, it investigates correlations between these measures and the link between online and off-line language scores in the DLD group. Method Using the visual world paradigm, Dutch children ages 3;6 (years;months) with (a suspicion of) DLD ( = 51) and TD peers ( = 31) listened to utterances such as, "Kijk, een hoed!" () in a word recognition task, and sentences such as, "Hé, hij leest gewoon een boek" (literal translation: ) in a word prediction task, while watching a target and distractor picture.

Semantic Processing of Sentences in Preschoolers With Specific Language Impairment: Evidence From the N400 Effect.

Purpose: Given the complexity of sentence processing and the specific problems that children with specific language impairment (SLI) experience, we investigated the time course and characteristics of semantic processing at the sentence level in Dutch preschoolers with SLI.

Method: We measured N400 responses to semantically congruent and incongruent spoken sentences (e.g.

Task-related influences on neurophysiological assessment of auditory rhyme: implications for clinical studies.

Objective: The present study investigated whether implicit rhyme detection, as an implicit measure of phonological processing, can be assessed using a passive ERP paradigm.

Methods: Pseudoword pairs were presented to healthy adults while their EEG was recorded. Participants were either instructed to (a) indicate by a button press after each pseudoword pair whether the words rhymed or not (active paradigm) or (b) ignore the speech stimuli (passive paradigm).

The nature of auditory discrimination problems in children with specific language impairment: an MMN study.

Many children with specific language impairment (SLI) show impairments in discriminating auditorily presented stimuli. The present study investigates whether these discrimination problems are speech specific or of a general auditory nature. This was studied using a linguistic and nonlinguistic contrast that were matched for acoustic complexity in an active behavioral task and a passive ERP paradigm, known to elicit the mismatch negativity (MMN).

Towards neurophysiological assessment of phonemic discrimination: context effects of the mismatch negativity.

Objective: This study focusses on the optimal paradigm for simultaneous assessment of auditory and phonemic discrimination in clinical populations. We investigated (a) whether pitch and phonemic deviants presented together in one sequence are able to elicit mismatch negativities (MMNs) in healthy adults and (b) whether MMN elicited by a change in pitch is modulated by the presence of the phonemic deviants.

Methods: Standard stimuli [i] were intermixed with small, medium or large pitch deviants or with pitch deviants of the same magnitude together with small and large phonemic deviants, [y] and [u], respectively.