The Effects of Emotional Content on Phonological Processing in Children Who Stutter

Objectives: Stuttering and phonological processing are mutually related. Emotion is an effective factor in fluency and language processing; however, its underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. Event-Related Potential (ERP) is a non-invasive highly-beneficial method with high time resolution for language processing. The present study aimed to explore phonological processing in emotional words in Children Who Stutter (CWS), compared to Typically-Developing Children (TDC). Methods: Ten Persian-speaking CWS (3 girls, 7 boys), aged 7-10 years (Mean±SD = 8.9±0.11) and 10 TDC who are matched in age (Mean±SD = 8.7±0.12) and gender were given 120 emotional words (high-valence low-valence) and neutral words to read. Phonological processing was measured by the aloud reading task, while ERP was simultaneously recorded. The collected results were analyzed as behavioral (reaction time and reading accuracy) and electrophysiological (amplitude and topography). Repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Independent Samples t-test were used for between-group comparisons. Results: The obtained behavioral data included Reaction Time (RT) and accuracy. There were no significant differences between the explored CWS and TDC in RT and accuracy (P>0.05). The mean value of amplitudes presented significant differences between CWS and TDC in language processing areas (P<0.05). The collected results indicated higher mean values of amplitude for neutral words. The distribution highly differed between the investigated CWS and TDC in neutral and negative words. However, there were similarities in positive words in distribution between the study groups. Discussion: The studied CWS and TDC were similar concerning behavioral results. High-valence words in the CWS group presented a higher similar distribution, compared to the TDC groups; however, low-valence words in the explored CWS had a more similar amplitude to the TDC group for neutral words. Then, emotional content facilitated phonological processing in the investigated CWS in the given time range.