STUDY OF UNILATERAL HEMISPHERE PERFORMANCE IN CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DYSPHASIA

Hemisphere specialization For language was studied in 10 children with expressive developmental dysphasia (DD) (mean age 10 years 4 months) submitted to a dichotic listening task (in a word free-recall task and forced-attention task) and a finger tapping/vocalization dual-task pa radigm. A nonsense shape dichaptic task was also introduced to control right hemispheric processing. Performances of dysphasic children were compared to those obtained from 15 normal children. The results showe d that controls had a right ear advantage in free-recall (words) dicho tic listening task and a significant right ear advantage in forced-rig ht-attention task, with a change in ear asymmetry as a consequence of instruction. In the dysphasic group we observed a significant right ea r advantage in the free-recall dichotic listening task and no change i n ear asymmetry during forced right or forced left condition. Results in time sharing paradigm and nonsense dichaptic task are more difficul t to interpret, because there was no interaction between group and con dition. These results cannot support a complete left hemisphere dysfun ction in developmental dysphasia.