Abstract
Learning disabilities (LDs) are the most common psychiatric disorders in children. LDs are classified either as “Specific” or “Learning Disorder Not Otherwise Specified”. An important hypothesis suggests a failure in general domain process (i.e., attention) that explains global academic deficiencies. The aim of this study was to evaluate event-related potential (ERP) patterns of LD Not Otherwise Specified children with respect to a control group. Forty-one children (8−10.6 years old) participated and performed a semantic judgment priming task while ERPs were recorded. Twenty-one LD children had significantly lower scores in all academic skills (reading, writing and arithmetic) than twenty controls. Different ERP patterns were observed for each group. Control group showed smaller amplitudes of an anterior P200 for unrelated than related word pairs. This P200 effect was followed by a significant early N400a effect (greater amplitudes for unrelated than related word pairs; 350–550 ms) with a right topographical distribution. By contrast, LD Not Otherwise Specified group did not show a P200 effect or a significant N400a effect. This evidence suggests that LD Not Otherwise Specified children might be deficient in reading, writing and arithmetic domains because of their sluggish shifting of attention to process the incoming information.
Highlights
Learning disabilities Learning disabilities (LDs) are the most common psychiatric disorders in children during their school years [1]
Supporting the first hypothesis, Swanson [9] proposed that LD children fail in mechanisms of executive functioning, which points to working memory (WM) deficits as essential problems in children and adults with LDs [10,11], in Baddeley’s proposed phonological loop and central executive [5,12,13,14,15]
We think that general deficiencies across cognitive areas in LD Not Otherwise Specified are due to a general domain process failure, so first we expected children with LD and controls would show different P200 pattern and second, this attention problem would probably be reflected in a different N400 pattern, all of this in way similar to findings in Specific LD
Summary
Learning disabilities Learning disabilities (LDs) are the most common psychiatric disorders in children during their school years [1]. LDs are classified either as ‘‘specific’’ (reading disorder, math disorder, or disorder of written expression) or ‘‘learning disorder not otherwise specified’’ (when the impairments do not satisfy the criteria of any specific learning disability). This latter category includes observed deficiencies in reading, mathematics, and written expression that may significantly interfere with academic performance even if the individual’s performance on standardized tests is not substantially below the expected performance for the individual’s age, IQ, and grade level. Hari and Renvall [16] postulate sluggish shifting of attention as the source of reading acquisition disorders [17] Both theoretical frameworks could explain the global deficiencies of LD Not Otherwise Specified
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