AUDITORY and VISUAL EVOKED POTENTIALS OF SCHOOLBOYS WITH SPELLING DISABILITIES

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Abstract
EEG evoked potentials were studied in 23 young adolescent poor spellers and 21 controls. Findings typical of poor spellers were long auditory evoked potential (AEP) latencies and low amplitudes of early AEP deflections. A high frequency of spelling errors concerning the word as a whole was associated with low AEP P50 and P300 amplitudes. Poor reading was associated with high AEP sustained potential amplitudes and a long AEP P185 latency. Generally, poor spellers seem to have problems with the early filtering processes of attention, whereas spelling errors concerning the word as a whole seem to be associated with problems of late attentional processes. The abnormal findings in the poor spellers are interpreted in terms of a brain maturational delay that presents as an attentional disorder.