Reading and Subcortical Auditory Function
Open Access
- 17 March 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Cerebral Cortex
- Vol. 19 (11), 2699-2707
- https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhp024
Abstract
Although it is largely agreed that phonological processing deficits are a major cause of poor reading, the neural origins of phonological processing are not well understood. We now show, for the first time, that phonological decoding, measured with a test of single-nonword reading, is significantly correlated with the timing of subcortical auditory processing and also, to a lesser extent, with the robustness of subcortical representation of the harmonic content of speech, but not with pitch encoding. The relationships we observe between reading and subcortical processing fall along a continuum, with poor readers at one end and good readers at the other. These data suggest that reading skill may depend on the integrity of subcortical auditory mechanisms and are consistent with the idea that subcortical representation of the acoustic features of speech may play a role in normal reading as well as in the development of reading disorders. These data establish a significant link between subcortical auditory function and reading, thereby contributing to the understanding of the biological bases of reading. At a more general level, these findings are among the first to establish a direct relationship between subcortical sensory function and a specific cognitive skill (reading). We argue that this relationship between cortical and subcortical function could be shaped during development by the corticofugal pathway and that this cortical–subcortical link could contribute to the phonological processing deficits experienced by poor readers.This publication has 92 references indexed in Scilit:
- Experience‐induced Malleability in Neural Encoding of Pitch, Timbre, and TimingAnnals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2009
- Early cognitive and language skills are linked to resting frontal gamma power across the first 3 yearsBehavioural Brain Research, 2008
- Deficient brainstem encoding of pitch in children with Autism Spectrum DisordersClinical Neurophysiology, 2008
- Relationships between behavior, brainstem and cortical encoding of seen and heard speech in musicians and non-musiciansHearing Research, 2008
- Auditory Cortex Mapmaking: Principles, Projections, and PlasticityNeuron, 2007
- Musicians have enhanced subcortical auditory and audiovisual processing of speech and musicProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007
- Auditory word identification in dyslexic and normally achieving readersJournal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2007
- Does attention play a role in dynamic receptive field adaptation to changing acoustic salience in A1?Hearing Research, 2007
- Infant information processing and family history of specific language impairment: converging evidence for RAP deficits from two paradigmsDevelopmental Science, 2007
- EPS Mid-Career Award 2005: Developmental Cognitive Genetics: How Psychology can Inform Genetics and Vice VersaThe Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2006