P300 suppression effect in children with learning disorder

Subject: White noise contralateral stimulation effects on Auditory P300 in children with Learning Disorder compared to children with Academic Difficulties (due to lack of stimulation, sociocultural or educational problems) and to children in typical development of the academic skills. Aim: To compare the latencies and amplitudes of P300 auditory event-related potentials in children with learning disabilities and children with academic difficulties in two assessment conditions: with and without white noise contralateral stimulation. Study design: observational cross-sectional survey carried out at the Centre of Research and Studies in Rehabilitation (CEPRE) - Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Campinas. Material and method: 37 children ranging from 8 to 15 years of age, both genders, who underwent auditory P300 assessment. Children were divided into 3 groups: LDG - 10 children with Learning Disorder as per interdisciplinary diagnosis, according to DSM-V criteria; ADG ¿ 12 children with academic difficulties (due to stimulation, sociocultural or educational problems, as identified by a multidisciplinary team at DISAPRE/FCM/UNICAMP); and CG ¿ 15 children in typical development without academic complaints. All subjects included in the study were normal hearing. Children with hearing impairments, attention deficit hyperactive disorder or any other genetic neural or psychological disease were excluded. To elicit P300 all subjects were submitted to the same auditory discrimination task: to identify and to count the target stimuli. P300 assessment was conducted in two recording conditions: with and without using contralateral white noise at 75 dB HL. Results: ADG and GC children demonstrated significant P300 latency delay in the condition with noise. No significant differences were observed between conditions with and without noise in the LDG group. LDG and ADG children performed significantly poorer on all applied auditory processing tests when compared to CG children. Conclusion: the present results points to the importance of considering the auditory processing aspects on the evaluation and intervention planning of children with Learning Disorder and Academic Difficulties (AU)