Auditory temporal processing impairment: Neither necessary nor sufficient for causing language impairment in children

Fourteen twin pairs, aged 8 to 10 years, were tested 3 times over 12 months ; they included 11 children with language impairment (LI), ii control child ren matched on nonverbal ability and age, and 6 co-twins who did not meet c riteria For ii or control status. Thresholds were estimated For detecting a brief backward-masked tone (BM), detection of frequency modulation (FM), a nd pitch discrimination using temporal cues (Delta f(0)). Both BM and FM th resholds improved with training, and by the 2nd test session, FM thresholds were in the adult range. There were marked on and Brain individual differe nces on BM and Delta f(0,) and, for both tasks, performance correlated with Tallal's Auditory Repetition Task administered 2 years previously. However , no auditory measure gave significant differences between LI and control g roups; performance was influenced more by nonverbal than language ability. Some children did have a stable pattern of poor performance on certain audi tory tasks, but their good FM detection raised questions about whether proc essing of auditory temporal information is abnormal. We Found no evidence t hat auditory deficits are a necessary or sufficient cause of language impai rments.