Neural processing of rhythmic speech by children with developmental language disorder (DLD): An EEG study

Sensitivity to rhythmic and prosodic cues in speech has been described as a precursor of language acquisition. Consequently, atypical rhythmic processing during infancy and early childhood has been considered a risk factor for developmental language disorders. Despite many behavioural studies, the neural processing of rhythmic speech has not yet been explored in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Here we utilise EEG to investigate the neural processing of rhythmic speech by 9-year-old children with and without DLD. In the current study, we investigate phase entrainment, angular velocity, power, event related potentials (ERPs), phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) and phase-phase coupling (PPC), at three frequency bands selected on the basis of the prior literature, delta, theta and low gamma. We predicted a different phase of entrainment in the delta band in children with DLD, and also greater theta power, atypical cross-frequency coupling and possibly atypical gamma-band responses. Contrary to prediction, children with DLD demonstrated significant and equivalent phase entrainment in the delta and theta bands to control children. However, only the control children showed significant phase entrainment in the low gamma band. The children with DLD also exhibited significantly more theta and low gamma power compared to the control children, and there was a significant gamma-band difference in angular velocity between the two groups. Finally, group resultant phase analyses showed that low-frequency phase (delta and theta) affected gamma oscillations differently by group. These EEG data show important differences between children with and without DLD in the neural mechanisms underpinning the processing of rhythmic speech. The findings are discussed in terms of auditory theories of DLD, particularly Temporal Sampling theory.