ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC COHERENCES DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN CHILDREN WITHDIFFERENT PEDAGOGICAL EVALUATION

The relationship of reading-writing ability and EEG coherences was stu died in 84 subjects from two age groups 7.0-8.9 and 9-11.2 years old. All children were divided into three groups according to their perform ance on a pedagogical test: ped1, normal children; ped2, children with mild problems; ped3, children with reading-writing disability. The fo llowing results were obtained: in general, children showed higher cohe rences in groups with poor performance in the delta, theta and beta ba nds. In the alpha band, higher coherence values were related to better performance. The exceptions to this general pattern were rare. Group ped2 had higher coherences in delta, theta and alpha bands than ped1 a nd ped3, in left temporal leads. In older children the same tendency w as observed, but group differences in the theta, alpha and beta bands were few. In this age range, the significant group differences were al most all interhemispheric coherences. The discriminant analysis that c lassified subjects by their coherence values gave very good results, f act that demonstrates, that EEG coherence is a highly sensitive measur ement indicating not only the existence of a reading-writing problem, but also the degree of its severity.