Dataset Information

Generalization of Auditory Sensory and Cognitive Learning in Typically Developing Children.

ABSTRACT: Despite the well-established involvement of both sensory ("bottom-up") and cognitive ("top-down") processes in literacy, the extent to which auditory or cognitive (memory or attention) learning transfers to phonological and reading skills remains unclear. Most research has demonstrated learning of the trained task or even learning transfer to a closely related task. However, few studies have reported "far-transfer" to a different domain, such as the improvement of phonological and reading skills following auditory or cognitive training. This study assessed the effectiveness of auditory, memory or attention training on far-transfer measures involving phonological and reading skills in typically developing children. Mid-transfer was also assessed through untrained auditory, attention and memory tasks. Sixty 5- to 8-year-old children with normal hearing were quasi-randomly assigned to one of five training groups: attention group (AG), memory group (MG), auditory sensory group (SG), placebo group (PG; drawing, painting), and a control, untrained group (CG). Compliance, mid-transfer and far-transfer measures were evaluated before and after training. All trained groups received 12 x 45-min training sessions over 12 weeks. The CG did not receive any intervention. All trained groups, especially older children, exhibited significant learning of the trained task. On pre- to post-training measures (test-retest), most groups exhibited improvements on most tasks. There was significant mid-transfer for a visual digit span task, with highest span in the MG, relative to other groups. These results show that both sensory and cognitive (memory or attention) training can lead to learning in the trained task and to mid-transfer learning on a task (visual digit span) within the same domain as the trained tasks. However, learning did not transfer to measures of language (reading and phonological awareness), as the PG and CG improved as much as the other trained groups. Further research is required to investigate the effects of various stimuli and lengths of training on the generalization of sensory and cognitive learning to literacy skills.

SUBMITTER: Murphy CF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4534328 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Generalization of Auditory Sensory and Cognitive Learning in Typically Developing Children.

Murphy Cristina F B CF Moore David R DR Schochat Eliane E

PloS one 20150812 8

Despite the well-established involvement of both sensory ("bottom-up") and cognitive ("top-down") processes in literacy, the extent to which auditory or cognitive (memory or attention) learning transfers to phonological and reading skills remains unclear. Most research has demonstrated learning of the trained task or even learning transfer to a closely related task. However, few studies have reported "far-transfer" to a different domain, such as the improvement of phonological and reading skills ...[more]

PMID: 26267275

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Project description:Limited research has investigated the development of auditory ERPs in young children, and particularly how stimulus intensity may affect these auditory ERPs. Previous research has also yielded inconsistent findings regarding differences in the development of auditory ERPs in autism and typical development. Furthermore, stimulus intensity may be of particular interest in autism insofar as autistic people may have atypical experiences of sound intensity (e.g., hyperacusis). Therefore, the present study examined associations between age and ERPs evoked by tones of differing intensities (50, 60, 70, and 80 dB SPL) in a large sample of young children (2-5 years) with and without an autism diagnosis. Correlations between age and P1 latencies were examined, while cluster-based permutation testing was used to examine associations between age and neural response amplitudes, as well as group differences in amplitude, over all electrode sites in the longer time window of 1-350 ms. Older autistic participants had faster P1 latencies, but these effects only attained significance over the right hemisphere in response to soft 50 dB sounds. Autistic participants had slower P1 responses to 80 dB sounds over the right hemisphere. Over the scalp regions associated with the later N2 response, more negative response amplitudes (that is, larger N2 responses) were observed in typically-developing than autistic participants. Furthermore, continuous associations between response amplitudes and age suggested that older typically-developing participants exhibited stronger N2 responses to all intensities, though this effect may have at least in part reflected the absence of small positive voltage deflections in the N2 latency window. Age was associated with amplitudes of responses to 50 dB through 70 dB sounds in autism, but in contrast to Typical Development (TD), little evidence of relationships between age and amplitudes in the N2 latency window was found in autism in the 80 dB condition. Although caution should be exercised in interpretation due to the cross-sectional nature of this study, these findings suggest that developmental changes in auditory responses may differ across diagnostic groups in a manner that depends on perceived loudness and/or stimulus intensity.

Project description:BackgroundAutistic individuals exhibit atypical patterns of sensory processing that are known to be related to quality of life, but which are also highly heterogeneous. Previous investigations of this heterogeneity have ordinarily used questionnaires and have rarely investigated sensory processing in typical development (TD) alongside autism spectrum development (ASD).MethodsThe present study used hierarchical clustering in a large sample to identify subgroups of young autistic and typically developing children based on the normalized global field power (GFP) of their event-related potentials (ERPs) to auditory stimuli of four different loudness intensities (50, 60, 70, 80 dB SPL): that is, based on an index of the relative strengths of their neural responses across these loudness conditions.ResultsFour clusters of participants were defined. Normalized GFP responses to sounds of different intensities differed strongly across clusters. There was considerable overlap in cluster assignments of autistic and typically developing participants, but autistic participants were more likely to display a pattern of relatively linear increases in response strength accompanied by a disproportionately strong response to 70 dB stimuli. Autistic participants displaying this pattern trended towards obtaining higher scores on assessments of cognitive abilities. There was also a trend for typically developing participants to disproportionately fall into a cluster characterized by disproportionately/nonlinearly strong 60 dB responses. Greater auditory distractibility was reported among autistic participants in a cluster characterized by disproportionately strong responses to the loudest (80 dB) sounds, and furthermore, relatively strong responses to loud sounds were correlated with auditory distractibility. This appears to provide evidence of coinciding behavioral and neural sensory atypicalities.LimitationsReplication may be needed to verify exploratory results. This analysis does not address variability related to classical ERP latencies and topographies. The sensory questionnaire employed was not specifically designed for use in autism. Hearing acuity was not measured. Variability in sensory responses unrelated to loudness is not addressed, leaving room for additional research.ConclusionsTaken together, these data demonstrate the broader benefits of using electrophysiology to explore individual differences. They illuminate different neural response patterns and suggest relationships between sensory neural responses and sensory behaviors, cognitive abilities, and autism diagnostic status.

Project description:BackgroundPrevious findings have shown that humans can learn to localize with altered auditory space cues. Here we analyze such learning processes and their effects up to one month on both localization accuracy and sound externalization. Subjects were trained and retested, focusing on the effects of stimulus type in learning, stimulus type in localization, stimulus position, previous experience, externalization levels, and time.MethodWe trained listeners in azimuth and elevation discrimination in two experiments. Half participated in the azimuth experiment first and half in the elevation first. In each experiment, half were trained in speech sounds and half in white noise. Retests were performed at several time intervals: just after training and one hour, one day, one week and one month later. In a control condition, we tested the effect of systematic retesting over time with post-tests only after training and either one day, one week, or one month later.ResultsWith training all participants lowered their localization errors. This benefit was still present one month after training. Participants were more accurate in the second training phase, revealing an effect of previous experience on a different task. Training with white noise led to better results than training with speech sounds. Moreover, the training benefit generalized to untrained stimulus-position pairs. Throughout the post-tests externalization levels increased. In the control condition the long-term localization improvement was not lower without additional contact with the trained sounds, but externalization levels were lower.ConclusionOur findings suggest that humans adapt easily to altered auditory space cues and that such adaptation spreads to untrained positions and sound types. We propose that such learning depends on all available cues, but each cue type might be learned and retrieved differently. The process of localization learning is global, not limited to stimulus-position pairs, and it differs from externalization processes.

Dataset Information

Generalization of Auditory Sensory and Cognitive Learning in Typically Developing Children.

Publications

Generalization of Auditory Sensory and Cognitive Learning in Typically Developing Children.

Similar Datasets

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