Varghese-Usha-2023

• We studied auditory steady state responses (ASSR) at 2, 5, 8 Hz in 7-to-12-year-olds.

• Half the sample had dyslexia or dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD).

• Children with dyslexia/dyslexia with DLD had reduced ASSRs at 2 Hz.

• Stimulation at 2 Hz corresponds to the rate of stressed syllables across languages.

• Neural rhythmic responding at 2 Hz is atypical in dyslexia/dyslexia with DLD.

Neural synchronization to amplitude-modulated noise at three frequencies (2 Hz, 5 Hz, 8 Hz) thought to be important for syllable perception was investigated in English-speaking school-aged children. The theoretically-important delta-band (∼2Hz, stressed syllable level) was included along with two syllable-level rates. The auditory steady state response (ASSR) was recorded using EEG in 36 7-to-12-year-old children. Half of the sample had either dyslexia or dyslexia and DLD (developmental language disorder). In comparison to typically-developing children, children with dyslexia or with dyslexia and DLD showed reduced ASSRs for 2 Hz stimulation but similar ASSRs at 5 Hz and 8 Hz. These novel data for English ASSRs converge with prior data suggesting that children with dyslexia have atypical synchrony between brain oscillations and incoming auditory stimulation at ∼ 2 Hz, the rate of stressed syllable production across languages. This atypical synchronization likely impairs speech processing, phonological processing, and possibly syntactic processing, as predicted by Temporal Sampling theory.