Analysis of neural coding of speech in monaural and binaural conditions in children with speech sound disorder.

PURPOSE: To analyze whether children with phonological disorder present alterations in the neural coding of speech, using Frequency Following Response (FFR) under monaural and binaural conditions.

METHODS

This is an analytical, observational, cross-sectional study with a sample of 21 children with phonological disorders and 21 with typical development. They underwent the following procedures: medical history survey, phonological assessment, inspection of the external auditory canal, and audiological and electrophysiological evaluation, performed in one or two sessions. FFR was performed with the speech stimulus /da/, in two sweeps of 3000 stimuli at 80 dB HL, with a rate of 10.9 stimuli/second, a duration of 40 ms, and an analysis window of 74.677 ms.

RESULTS

Children with phonological disorders presented higher latency values ​​in all conditions than those with typical development, with statistical significance in the latency of wave V, and lower amplitudes than those with typical development, although without statistical significance. In terms of stimulus presentation, the binaural condition showed significantly larger amplitudes than the monaural conditions, suggesting the presence of a binaural summation effect.

CONCLUSION

Children with phonological disorders present alterations in speech encoding, evidenced by delays in FFR responses under both monaural and binaural conditions.