Grey matter volume in developmental speech and language disorder

• Published in: Brain Structure and Function Vol. 224; no. 9; pp. 3387 - 3398
• Main Authors: Pigdon, Lauren, Willmott, Catherine, Reilly, Sheena, Conti-Ramsden, Gina, Gaser, Christian, Connelly, Alan, Morgan, Angela T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-12-2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - pathology; Cell Biology; Cerebellum; Cerebellum - diagnostic imaging; Cerebellum - pathology; Child; Children; Female; Gray Matter - diagnostic imaging; Gray Matter - pathology; Humans; Information processing; Language; Language Development Disorders - diagnostic imaging; Language Development Disorders - pathology; Language disorders; Male; Neostriatum; Neurology; Neurosciences; Occipital lobe; Occipital Lobe - diagnostic imaging; Occipital Lobe - pathology; Original Article; Speech; Speech disorders; Substantia grisea; VBM; Speech; Language; MRI; Child
• ISSN: 1863-2653; 1863-2661; 0340-2061
• DOI: 10.1007/s00429-019-01978-7

Developmental language disorder (DLD) and developmental speech disorder (DSD) are common, yet their etiologies are not well understood. Atypical volume of the inferior and posterior language regions and striatum have been reported in DLD; however, variability in both methodology and study findings limits interpretations. Imaging research within DSD, on the other hand, is scarce. The present study compared grey matter volume in children with DLD, DSD, and typically developing speech and language. Compared to typically developing controls, children with DLD had larger volume in the right cerebellum, possibly associated with the procedural learning deficits that have been proposed in DLD. Children with DSD showed larger volume in the left inferior occipital lobe compared to controls, which may indicate a compensatory role of the visual processing regions due to sub-optimal auditory-perceptual processes. Overall, these findings suggest that different neural systems may be involved in the specific deficits related to DLD and DSD.