Differences in AERP responses and atypical hemispheric specialization in 17-month-old children at risk of dyslexia

To determine the auditory event-related potential (AERP) correlates of phoneme perception in 17-month-old children at risk of dyslexia and controls, AERPs were elicited by standard (/bAk/) and deviant (/dAK/) word stimuli presented in an oddball paradigm. The at-risk children tended to show delayed P1 and P2 peaks for standard stimuli. Hemispheric group differences were observed for N2 amplitude and P1 latency, suggesting atypical processing of spoken words in at-risk children. Larger P2 and to a lesser extent Pi amplitudes following deviant words occurred in the control but not in the at-risk group, this may signal poorer phoneme discrimination in at-risk children. The present AERP results offer clues to where to look for a marker to identify children at high risk of reading and writing problems at an early age to facilitate early intervention. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.