PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Mahmoud Keshavarzi
AU  - Kanad Mandke
AU  - Annabel Macfarlane
AU  - Lyla Parvez
AU  - Fiona Gabrielczyk
AU  - Angela Wilson
AU  - Usha Goswami
TI  - Atypical beta-band effects in children with dyslexia in response to rhythmic audio-visual speech
AID  - 10.1101/2023.03.29.534542
DP  - 2023 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2023.03.29.534542
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/03/30/2023.03.29.534542.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/03/30/2023.03.29.534542.full
AB  - Children with dyslexia are known to show impairments in perceiving speech rhythm, which impact their phonological development. Neural rhythmic speech studies have reported atypical delta phase in children with dyslexia, but beta band effects have not yet been studied. It is known that delta phase modulates the amplitude of the beta band response during rhythmic tasks via delta-beta phase-amplitude coupling (PAC). Accordingly, the atypical delta band effects reported for children with dyslexia may imply related atypical beta band effects. Here we analyse EEG data collected during a rhythmic speech paradigm from 51 children (21 typically-developing; 30 with dyslexia) who attended to a talking head repeating “ba” at 2Hz. Phase entrainment in the beta band, angular velocity in the beta band, power responses in the beta band and delta-beta PAC were assessed for each child and each group. Phase entrainment in the beta band was only significant for children without dyslexia. Children with dyslexia did not exhibit any phase consistency, and beta-band angular velocity was significantly faster compared to control children. Power in the beta band was significantly greater in the children with dyslexia. Delta-beta PAC was significant in both groups. The data are interpreted with respect to temporal sampling theory.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.