EEG Spectral Characteristics in Junior Schoolchildren with Learning Problems

Abstract

EEG spectral characteristics were studied in two age groups (7–8.5 and 8.5–10 years) of mentally healthy children and children with learning problems at rest and during performance of a Raven test. It was shown that slow frequencies are more pronounced in the EEG of 7- to 8.5-year-old children with learning problems than in EEG of healthy children of the same age group. An immature form of EEG activation, i.e., an increase not only in the β but also in the α frequencies during activity, was characteristic of these children. The reaction of the activation of the definitive type develops between the 8.5–10 years of age. This reaction is correlated with an increase in the efficiency of the sensory perceptive and sensorimotor activity. The distinctive feature of children with learning problems between 8.5–10 years of age is a greater expression of slow frequencies in the baseline EEG of the frontal (in particular, left frontal) areas of the cortex. The obtained results are considered as a reflection of a retardation of the functional maturation of the brain structures responsible for the deficit of involuntary and voluntary attention and the disorder of a systemic organization of perception and analytical–synthetic brain activity as compared to the normal age characteristics. Possible neurophysiological mechanisms responsible for learning problems in junior schoolchildren are discussed on the basis of the obtained results and evidence from the literature.