Date of Completion
9-14-2018
Embargo Period
9-14-2018
Advisors
Letitia Naigles, Erika Skoe, Marie Coppola, Deborah Fein
Field of Study
Psychological Sciences
Degree
Master of Science
Open Access
Open Access
Abstract
Syntactic, semantic, and phonological knowledge are vital aspects of macro level language ability. Prior research has focused on environmental or cortical sources of individual differences in these areas. Subcortical contributions of the auditory brainstem have also been found to contribute to language ability in both typically developing (TD) populations and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study investigates whether one aspect of auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), response stability, a metric of the variability of instance to instance neural encoding of sound, can predict syntactic, semantic, and phonological performance in TD and ASD school-aged children. This study further investigates the degree to which phonological discrimination serves as a moderator of any relationship found between /da/ stability and syntax and semantics. Results showed that higher /da/ stability was associated with better phonological discrimination and syntactic performance in both TD and ASD children. Furthermore, phonological discrimination was a successful mediator of the relationship between /da/ stability and syntactic performance. This study supports the growing body of literature that stable subcortical neural encoding of sound is important for language development.
Recommended Citation
Tecoulesco, Lisa, "Auditory Brainstem Response and Language in Typically Developing Children and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder" (2018). Master's Theses. 1296.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/gs_theses/1296
Major Advisor
Letitia Naigles