IN order to investigate the relationship between dyslexia and central
auditory processing, 19 children with spelling disability and 15 contr
ols at grades 5 and 6 were examined using a passive oddball paradigm.
Mismatch negativity (MMN) was determined for tone and speech stimuli.
While there were no group differences for the tone stimuli, we found a
significantly attenuated MMN in the dyslexic group for the speech sti
muli. This finding leads to the conclusion that dyslexics have a speci
fic speech processing deficit at the sensory level which could be used
to identify children at risk at an early age.