Brain Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) Measured at Birth Predict Later Language Development in Children with and Without Familial Risk for Dyslexia

We report associations between brain event-related potentials (ERPs) measured from newborns with and without familial risk for dyslexia and these same children's later language and verbal memory skills at 2.5, 3.5, and 5 years of age. ERPs to synthetic consonant-vowel syllables (/ba/, /da/, /ga/; presented equiprobably with 3,910-7,285 msec interstimulus intervals) were recorded from 26 newborns at risk for familial dyslexia and 23 control infants participating in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. The correlation and regression analyses showed that the at-risk type of response pattern at birth (a slower shift in polarity from positivity to negativity in responses to /ga/ at 540-630 msec) in the right hemisphere was related to significantly poorer receptive language skills across both groups at the age of 2.5 years. The similar ERP pattern in the left hemisphere was associated with poorer verbal memory skills at the age of 5 years. These results demonstrate that ERPs of newborns may be valid predictors of later language and neurocognitive outcomes.