Abstract:

Auditory brainstem response (ABR) provides a noninvasive and objective way to understand how complex sounds are processed in human brain. Recently it has been used in the field of auditory cognitive neuroscience to investigate: (1) brainstem response to speech sounds in adults and normally developing children and (2) the neural basis of perceptual and phonological deficits in dyslexia and other developmental disorders. By discussing these new findings, we suggest that the relationship between basic auditory processing and high-level cognitive processes in speech perception and the neural basis of dyslexia will be the main directions for future studies.

Key words: auditory brainstem responses, speech perception, neural basis, developmental dyslexia