Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is characterized by impairments in speech comprehension and/or production that cannot be explained by hearing loss, intellectual deficits or neurological damage. While difficulties in phonology, semantic, and syntactic abilities have been extensively studied, prosodic aspects, in particular speech rhythm production, remain underexplored. For this aim, we analyzed spoken sentence productions of French-speaking children with and without DLD. Participants repeated sentences after having listened to either regular or irregular rhythmic primes. We examined (1) speech rhythm production, (2) the influence of rhythmic priming on speech production measures, and (3) the influence of covariates related to cognitive development on speech rhythm production and the rhythmic priming effect. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed on twenty-four speech rhythm metrics, calculated from the duration of distinct linguistic units (i.e., vowels, consonants, syllables, words, pauses). PCA results showed that the dimensionality of speech rhythmic measures can be reduced to four main dimensions, regrouping speech rate, syllable variability, vocalic proportion and variability, and duration of pauses, respectively. The results showed that (1) children with DLD had slower speech rate and higher syllable variability compared to the control group, (2) exposure to regular rhythmic primes increased speech rate in children with DLD, whose rhythmic patterns became more similar to those of the control group, and (3) interindividual differences modulated speech rhythm patterns and effects of rhythmic priming. Our findings encourage the use of speech rhythm measures in the characterization of DLD, and the use of rhythmic stimulation in training and rehabilitation.

Background Recent advances in equipment miniaturization have led to low-cost, portable electroencephalography (EEG) systems that facilitate data collection in real-world settings and with larger samples. Although wireless EEG systems were originally developed for non-research applications, recent studies have provided valuable information to help researchers make informed choices, particularly about participant comfort, mobility during recordings, and data validity. This study aimed to assess the impact of portability by comparing the performance of portable consumer- and research-grade systems (EPOC Saline Flex, EM; LiveAmp, LA) with fixed research-grade systems (BrainAmp, BA). Method Continuous EEG was recorded with each system in healthy adults performing five benchmark tasks in fundamental and clinical cognitive neuroscience. Mental states (alpha power variations in open/closed eyes) and unconscious perception (steady-state visual evoked potential, SSVEP) were analyzed through time/frequency methods, while active (N200 and P300 components during active listening and N170 component during face recognition) and passive cognitive processes (Mismatch negativity, MMN component during passive listening) were examined using time/amplitude analyses (event-related potential, ERPs). Our analyses compared system efficiency at native and equalized sampling rates and examined 100%, 75%, and 50% of the datasets to determine the required trial number for satisfactory signal quality. Results Despite the smaller amount of signal retained for EM, all systems recorded the expected resting state alpha power decrease and SSVEP responses, with EM showing lower spectral effects ([EM < (LA≈BA)]). ERPs for active (N170, N200, P300) and passive (MMN) processes emerged across all systems, with EM and LA showing lower amplitudes only for N170 compared to BA. Furthermore, the dataset reduction resulted in a decreased N170 at P7 only for EM ([EM < LA < BA]). EM also exhibited shorter latencies for all ERPs except for MMN. Conclusion This study provides concrete guidance for designing EEG experiments in real-world settings, with significant potential for investigating children and vulnerable populations. The efficiency of the three EEG systems is more influenced by task duration than sampling rates. A wireless EEG device, such as the EM, can effectively support both time/frequency and time/amplitude analyses in cognitive science, provided that the number of trials is sufficient and latencies are controlled.

Effective speech analysis involves deconstructing the acoustic signal into identifiable linguistic units, which depends on the ability to recognize and anticipate temporal patterns within the speech stream. However, these processes may be less efficient in individuals with dyslexia. This study investigated the effects of temporal context and related temporal predictions in dyslexic adult participants and matched control participants, using an auditory oddball task with non-verbal stimuli. Pure tones were presented in sequences, and participants were requested to discriminate the pitch of target stimuli. The temporal intervals between the sounds varied in regularity across the sequences, thereby creating contexts with different levels of temporal predictability. At the end of each sequence, participants were prompted to evaluate the perceived rhythmicity of the sequence and to assess their own performance in the auditory discrimination task. Dyslexic participants demonstrated overall lower accuracy in discriminating target sounds than controls. They also showed reduced influence of the temporal context of the sequences on response times, while controls responded faster in sequences that were temporally more regular and predictable. Additionally, individuals with dyslexia perceived the rhythmicity of sound sequences less accurately, overestimating the temporal regularity in irregular sequences and underestimating it in regular sequences. They also reported lower overall confidence in their ability to perform the task compared to control participants. Altogether, these findings provide converging evidence for altered temporal prediction abilities in dyslexia, which may impact auditory perception and then impair language processing. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Agence Nationale de la Recherche, https://ror.org/00rbzpz17, ANR-21-CE37-0003 Region Bourgogne-Franche Comté, FR, ANER grant MusiC

In English, voiceless stop consonants (i.e., /p-t-k/) have long voice onset times (VOT), and voiced stop consonants (i.e., /b-d-g/) have short VOTs. In French, voiceless stop consonants have short VOTs while voiced stop consonants have pre-lag VOTs, which can make late second language (L2) learning of English difficult. The Asymmetric Sampling in Time (AST) model proposes that slow and fast cerebral rhythms dominate in the auditory cortex of the right hemisphere and left hemisphere (LH), respectively, and preferentially support processing of long and short speech events. Our study extends the application of this model to sub-phonemic levels, where short VOTs were presented to the right ear (stimulating the LH), and long VOTs were presented to the left ear (dichotic stimulation). Pre-/post-tests assessed categorical perception performance in adults trained dichotically, binaurally, or without training. Consonant perception improved in dichotic and binaural groups, with generalization of training only in the dichotic group (experiment 1). Following dichotic training, the Mismatch Negativity amplitude increased for voiced English deviants, and hemispheric dominance shifted appropriately for voiceless deviants (experiment 2). These findings demonstrate that perceptual training grounded in an AST framework can induce phonological perception changes in late English learners, suggesting promising directions for L2 perceptual training.

The rhythmic priming effect (RPE) refers to improved language performance (typically grammaticality judgements) following regular rhythmic primes compared to various control conditions. This effect has been observed primarily in French, but also in English and Hungarian. However, a recent implementation by Kim, McLaren & Lee (2024), aiming to replicate the RPE in English (Chern, Tillmann, Vaughan & Gordon, 2018), was not successful, inviting a discussion about the conditions under which the RPE could be observed. We here discuss features of Kim et al.’s (2024) implementation that might have reduced the probability of observing the RPE. Compared to Chern et al. (2018), and numerous other studies reporting the RPE, additional delays after the primes and before each sentence were introduced by Kim et al. (2024). This change might have limited beneficial prime effects, which persist, but decay over time. Further, their instruction to “relax and have some rest” might have reduced attentive processing of the primes and related entrainment. Finally, their sample was small (n =16 per experiment) and with a large age range for investigating typically developing children (7-12y), potentially reducing experimental effects due to development-related individual variations. These methodological changes and sample characteristics are discussed in relation to previous research on the RPE, and entrainment in general. This discussion prompts the need for future research to investigate conditions leading to the RPE, with the aim to shed light on underlying mechanisms. Better understanding the RPE will be critical for the use of rhythmic priming within clinical and educational settings.

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits of music perception and production, which are related to altered pitch processing. The present study used a wide variety of tasks to test potential patterns of processing impairment in individuals with congenital amusia (N=18) in comparison to matched controls (N=19), notably classical pitch processing tests (i.e., pitch change detection, pitch direction of change identification, and pitch short-term memory tasks) together with tasks assessing other aspects of pitch-related auditory cognition, such as emotion recognition in speech, sound segregation in tone sequences, and speech-in-noise perception. Additional behavioral measures were also collected, including text reading/copying tests, visual control tasks, and a subjective assessment of hearing abilities. As expected, amusics’ performance was impaired for the three pitch-specific tasks compared to controls. This deficit of pitch perception had a self-perceived impact on amusics’ quality of hearing. Moreover, participants with amusia were impaired in emotion recognition in vowels compared to controls, but no group difference was observed for emotion recognition in sentences, replicating previous data. Despite pitch processing deficits, participants with amusia did not differ from controls in sound segregation and speech-in-noise perception. Text reading and visual control tests did not reveal any impairments in participants with amusia compared to controls. However, the copying test revealed more numerous eye-movements and a smaller memory span. These results allow us to refine the pattern of pitch processing and memory deficits in congenital amusia, thus contributing further to understand pitch-related auditory cognition. Together with previous reports suggesting a comorbidity between congenital amusia and dyslexia, the findings call for further investigation of language-related abilities in this disorder even in the absence of neurodevelopmental language disorder diagnosis.

Recently reported links between rhythm and grammar processing have opened new perspectives for using rhythm in clinical interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Previous research using the rhythmic priming paradigm has shown improved performance on language tasks after regular rhythmic primes compared to control conditions. However, this research has been limited to effects of rhythmic priming on grammaticality judgments. The current study investigated whether regular rhythmic primes could also benefit sentence repetition, a task requiring proficiency in complex syntax-an area of difficultly for children with DLD. Regular rhythmic primes improved sentence repetition performance compared to irregular rhythmic primes in children with DLD and with typical development-an effect that did not occur with a non-linguistic control task. These findings suggest processing overlap for musical rhythm and linguistic syntax, with implications for the use of rhythmic stimulation for treatment of children with DLD in clinical research and practice.

Perceiving and producing English phonemic vowel length contrasts is challenging for non-native speakers. According to multi-time resolution models, endogenous slow/fast rhythms contribute, respectively, in the right/left hemispheres, to long/short acoustic cue processing. This study introduced a perceptual training method implementing dichotic stimulation to improve /i:/-/ɪ/ processing by promoting hemispheric complementarity. Twenty non-dyslexic and 20 dyslexic French adults received 1 hr-training over 3 days. Productions were evaluated with pre-/post-tests. Training enhanced vowel duration contrast in word production by /i:/ lengthening and /ɪ/ shortening in both groups. Adults with dyslexia compensated fewer /i:/ lengthening by /ɪ/ shortening than did non-dyslexic adults. Transfer from perceptual training to production seems possible for foreign-language learning even in dyslexic adults. The extent to which dichotic presentation contributed to training effectiveness cannot be evaluated here, but the triggering of lengthening and shortening mechanisms suggests that lateralized complementary skills have been enhanced by dichotic stimulation.

Children with reading disorders present with inaccurate and/or delayed printed word identification. Regarding visual-attentional processing, printed words are letter strings, and each letter is a symbol made of separable features. Simultaneous processing of separable features has been evidenced to be specifically impaired in visual search tasks using symbols in poor readers as well as in a patient with superior parietal lobules (SPL) lesion. Additionally, activation in the SPL has been shown to be abnormally low in dyslexic readers displaying a reduced span of letter strings processing. This deficit has been assumed to impair visual-attentional sampling of printed words. An experiment conducted with 21 dyslexic children tested the hypothesis that a training program based on visual symbol search may stimulate the SPL, leading to a potential benefit transferred to reading performance. We designed the VisioCogLetters serious game and introduced it at random for one month (10 min every day) between four monthly reading sessions. No training was provided between the other (control) reading sessions. Reading accuracy increased without any speed-accuracy trade-off specifically in the session after training. Moreover, the percentage of improvement correlated with the individual time spent at home on training. These results show that improved visual search skills on symbols can translate into enhanced reading performance, and pave a new avenue for future rehabilitation tools.

Rhythm perception involves strong auditory-motor connections that can be enhanced with movement. However, it is unclear whether just seeing someone moving to a rhythm can enhance auditory-motor coupling, resulting in stronger entrainment. Rhythmic priming studies show that presenting regular rhythms before naturally spoken sentences can enhance grammaticality judgments compared to irregular rhythms or other baseline conditions. The current study investigated whether introducing a point-light figure moving in time with regular rhythms could enhance the rhythmic priming effect. Three experiments revealed that the addition of a visual cue did not benefit rhythmic priming in comparison to auditory conditions with a static image. In Experiment 1 (27 7-8-year-old children), grammaticality judgments were poorer after audio-visual regular rhythms (with a bouncing point-light figure) compared to auditory-only regular rhythms. In Experiments 2 (31 adults) and 3 (31 different adults), there was no difference in grammaticality judgments after audio-visual regular rhythms compared to auditory-only irregular rhythms for either a bouncing point-light figure (Experiment 2) or a swaying point-light figure (Experiment 3). Comparison of the observed performance with previous data suggested that the audio-visual component removed the regular prime benefit. These findings suggest that the visual cues used in this study do not enhance rhythmic priming and could hinder the effect by potentially creating a dual-task situation. In addition, individual differences in sensory-motor and social scales of music reward influenced the effect of the visual cue. Implications for future audio-visual experiments aiming to enhance beat processing, and the importance of individual differences will be discussed.

Après des travaux montrant un déficit d’inhibition des détails et un traitement peu spontané de la structure globale chez des enfants dyslexiques de surface (DS) monolingues français, ce déséquilibre des analyses visuo-attentionnelles globale/locale est étudié chez 15 enfants dyslexiques bilingues français-arabe (7 DS, 8 dyslexiques phonologiques (DP)) et des contrôles. Des lettres arabes hiérarchisées complètent les lettres latines et les dessins hiérarchisés du test initial. Les résultats confirment chez les enfants bilingues DS les deux anomalies étudiées, particulièrement avec les dessins et les lettres arabes hiérarchisées. Chez les enfants DS, ce déséquilibre global/local est corrélé au déficit en lecture des mots irréguliers, caractéristique de la DS, et à l’efficacité en lecture de mots réguliers. Chez les enfants DP, l’inhibition des détails, moins déficitaire, est néanmoins corrélée aux difficultés avec les mots irréguliers, révélant un déficit cognitif sous-jacent à prendre en considération pour la dyslexie. Un fait nouveau apparaît : une dominance intense de l’analyse globale chez les enfants DP bilingues, corrélée à leurs difficultés avec tout type de mot. Cette particularité visuo-attentionnelle pourrait entraver l’identification des lettres, entrainant des confusions pour les mots irréguliers et affectant le choix des règles graphème-phonème pour lire et écrire les mots réguliers.

Des travaux ont montré que l'inhibition proactive et réfléchie des réponses impulsives se traduit, au niveau cérébral, par l'onde N2, alors que l'inhibition réactive, par interruption tardive des commandes motrices, se traduit par l'onde P3. L'étude teste l'hypothèse d'un déséquilibre entre ces mécanismes chez les adultes TDAH, dont l'impulsivité serait mal détectée par les tests classiques. Un programme d'entraînement vise à mieux équilibrer les modes d'inhibition pour réduire l'impulsivité. En plus d'un test visuel de Go/Nogo classique et facile, deux nouveaux tests de Go/Nogo – l'un visuel mais difficile, l'autre auditif et facile – évaluent l'inhibition de réponse chez 44 adultes TDAH et 44 contrôles, à travers les performances et les potentiels évoqués. L'effet d'exercices de contrôle de l'inhibition (10 séances de 30 minutes) est ensuite comparé à celui d'exercices de maintien de l'attention (livres audio) en crossover chez 17 adultes TDAH. Le test d'impulsivité auditif a les meilleures qualités diagnostiques. Deux profils de patients se distinguent, l'un dont l'impulsivité apparaît si la tâche est simple et ennuyeuse, l'autre si elle est très difficile. Chez les patients, l'onde P2 révèle une analyse atypique des stimuli auditifs, et les ondes N2 et P3 associées à l'inhibition de réponse confirment un déséquilibre des modes d'inhibition proactif/réactif. Seuls cinq patients ont pu terminer l'entraînement, qui a diminué durablement leur impulsivité et rééquilibré les ondes N2 et P3. L'impulsivité peut persister chez des adultes TDAH, mais sa détection nécessite des tests adaptés à leur fonctionnement motivationnel. Elle est associée au déséquilibre de plusieurs mécanismes d'inhibition, mais peut être réduite par une remédiation spécifique. Même bien compensée, l'impulsivité d'adultes TDAH peut être détectée par des tests de Go/Nogo auditifs, et elle peut diminuer grâce à des exercices qu'il convient toutefois d'améliorer pour maintenir la motivation des patients pendant deux semaines.

Objective: Developmental dyslexia is a reading disorder that features difficulties in perceiving and track-ing rhythmic regularities in auditory streams, such as speech and music. Studies on typical healthy par-ticipants have shown that power fluctuations of neural oscillations in beta band (15-25 Hz) reflect an essential mechanism for tracking rhythm or entrainment and relate to predictive timing and attentional processes. Here we investigated whether adults with dyslexia have atypical beta power fluctuation. Methods: The electroencephalographic activities of individuals with dyslexia (n = 13) and typical control participants (n = 13) were measured while they passively listened to an isochronous tone sequence (2 Hz presentation rate). The time-frequency neural activities generated from auditory cortices were analyzed. Results: The phase of beta power fluctuation at the 2 Hz stimulus presentation rate differed and appeared opposite between individuals with dyslexia and controls. Conclusions: Atypical beta power fluctuation might reflect deficits in perceiving and tracking auditory rhythm in dyslexia. Significance: These findings extend our understanding of atypical neural activities for tracking rhythm in dyslexia and could inspire novel methods to objectively measure the benefits of training, and predict potential benefit of auditory rhythmic rehabilitation programs on an individual basis. (c) 2021 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

OBJECTIVE Music and speech are complex signals containing regularities in how they unfold in time. Similarities between music and speech/language in terms of their auditory features, rhythmic structure, and hierarchical structure have led to a large body of literature suggesting connections between the two domains. However, the precise underlying mechanisms behind this connection remain to be elucidated. METHOD In this theoretical review article, we synthesize previous research and present a framework of potentially shared neural mechanisms for music and speech rhythm processing. We outline structural similarities of rhythmic signals in music and speech, synthesize prominent music and speech rhythm theories, discuss impaired timing in developmental speech and language disorders, and discuss music rhythm training as an additional, potentially effective therapeutic tool to enhance speech/language processing in these disorders. RESULTS We propose the processing rhythm in speech and music (PRISM) framework, which outlines three underlying mechanisms that appear to be shared across music and speech/language processing: Precise auditory processing, synchronization/entrainment of neural oscillations to external stimuli, and sensorimotor coupling. The goal of this framework is to inform directions for future research that integrate cognitive and biological evidence for relationships between rhythm processing in music and speech. CONCLUSION The current framework can be used as a basis to investigate potential links between observed timing deficits in developmental disorders, impairments in the proposed mechanisms, and pathology-specific deficits which can be targeted in treatment and training supporting speech therapy outcomes. On these grounds, we propose future research directions and discuss implications of our framework. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Intraoral surgery for tongue cancer usually induces speech disorders that have a negative impact on communication and quality of life. Studies have documented the benefit of tongue ultrasound imaging as a visual articulatory feedback for speech rehabilitation. This study aims to assess specifically the complementary contribution of visual feedback to visual illustration (i.e. the display of ultrasound video of target language movements) for the speech rehabilitation of glossectomised patients. Two therapy conditions were used alternately for ten glossectomised French patients randomly divided into two cohorts. The IF cohort benefitted from 10 sessions using illustration alone (IL condition) followed by 10 sessions using illustration supplemented by visual feedback (IL+F condition). The FI cohort followed the opposite protocol, i.e. the first 10 sessions with the IL+F condition, followed by 10 sessions with the IL condition. Phonetic accuracy (Percent Consonants Correct) was monitored at baseline (T0, before the first series) and after each series (T1 and T2) using clinical speech-language assessments. None of the contrasts computed between the two conditions, using logistic regression with random effects models, were found to be statistically significant for the group analysis of assessment scores. Results were significant for a few individuals, with balanced advantages in both conditions. In conclusion, the use of articulatory visual feedback does not seem to bring a decisive advantage over the use of visual illustration, though speech therapists and patients reported that ultrasound feedback was useful at the beginning. This result should be confirmed by similar studies involving other types of speech disorders.

Research has shown that regular rhythmic primes improve grammaticality judgments of subsequently presented sentences compared with irregular rhythmic primes. In the theoretical framework of dynamic attending, regular rhythmic primes are suggested to act as driving rhythms to entrain neural oscillations. These entrained oscillations then sustain once the prime has finished, engendering a state of global enhanced activation that facilitates the processing of subsequent sentences. Up to now, this global rhythmic priming effect has largely been shown with primes that are approximately 30 s or more. To investigate whether shorter primes also facilitate grammaticality judgments, two experiments were run on two groups of children aged 7 to 9 years (Ms = 8.67 and 8.58 years, respectively). Prime durations were 8 and 16 s in Experiment 1, and they were 16 and 32 s in Experiment 2. Rhythmic priming was observed in Experiment 2 for 32-s primes, as observed previously. Furthermore, positive correlations were found between reading age and performance level after regular primes for both 8-s and 16-s primes in Experiment 1 and for 32-s primes in Experiment 2. In addition, the benefit of the regular primes increased with chronological age for the 32-s primes in Experiment 2. The findings suggest that (at least) 32-s primes are optimal in global rhythmic priming studies when testing children in the current age range and that results may be modulated by chronological age and reading age. Results are discussed in relation to dynamic attending theory, neural oscillation strength, developmental considerations, and implications for rhythmic stimulation in language rehabilitation. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

When listening to temporally regular rhythms, most people are able to extract the beat. Evidence suggests that the neural mechanism underlying this ability is the phase alignment of endogenous oscillations to the external stimulus, allowing for the prediction of upcoming events (i.e., dynamic attending). Relatedly, individuals with dyslexia may have deficits in the entrainment of neural oscillations to external stimuli, especially at low frequencies. The current experiment investigated rhythmic processing in adults with dyslexia and matched controls. Regular and irregular rhythms were presented to participants while electroencephalography was recorded. Regular rhythms contained the beat at 2 Hz; while acoustic energy was maximal at 4 Hz and 8 Hz. These stimuli allowed us to investigate whether the brain responds non-linearly to the beat-level of a rhythmic stimulus, and whether beat-based processing differs between dyslexic and control participants. Both groups showed enhanced stimulus-brain coherence for regular compared to irregular rhythms at the frequencies of interest, with an overrepresentation of the beat-level in the brain compared to the acoustic signal. In addition, we found evidence that controls extracted subtle temporal regularities from irregular stimuli, whereas dyslexics did not. Findings are discussed in relation to dynamic attending theory and rhythmic processing deficits in dyslexia.

Regular musical rhythms orient attention over time and facilitate processing. Previous research has shown that regular rhythmic stimulation benefits subsequent syntax processing in children with dyslexia and specific language impairment. The present EEG study examined the influence of a rhythmic musical prime on the P600 late evoked-potential, associated with grammatical error detection for dyslexic adults and matched controls. Participants listened to regular or irregular rhythmic prime sequences followed by grammatically correct and incorrect sentences. They were required to perform grammaticality judgments for each auditorily presented sentence while EEG was recorded. In addition, tasks on syntax violation detection as well as rhythm perception and production were administered. For both participant groups, ungrammatical sentences evoked a P600 in comparison to grammatical sentences and its mean amplitude was larger after regular than irregular primes. Peak analyses of the P600 difference wave confirmed larger peak amplitudes after regular primes for both groups. They also revealed overall a later peak for dyslexic participants, particularly at posterior sites, compared to controls. Results extend rhythmic priming effects on language processing to underlying electrophysiological correlates of morpho-syntactic violation detection in dyslexic adults and matched controls. These findings are interpreted in the theoretical framework of the Dynamic Attending Theory (Jones, 1976, 2019) and the Temporal Sampling Framework for developmental disorders (Goswami, 2011).