Auditory processing and dyslexia:: evidence for a specific speech processing deficit

IN order to investigate the relationship between dyslexia and central auditory processing, 19 children with spelling disability and 15 controls at grades 5 and 6 were examined using a passive oddball paradigm. Mismatch negativity (MMN) was determined for tone and speech stimuli. While there were no group differences for the tone stimuli, we found a significantly attenuated MMN in the dyslexic group for the speech stimuli. This finding leads to the conclusion that dyslexics have a specific speech processing deficit at the sensory level which could be used to identify children at risk at an early age.