Symposium C3

Psychophysiology of developmental disorders

Organizers: HarumitsuMurohashi (Japan) & Giuseppe Chiarenza (Italy)

Developmental dyslexia, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder,and autism spectrum disorder are typical disorders contained in theconcept of “developmental disorder”. It is thought that there are variouscauses in each disorder. Many researchers have investigated about thespecific causality from various viewpoints. In this symposium, we willdiscuss about developmental disorders to clarify the possible mecha-nisms by psychophysiological approaches. Such approaches might shedlight on the common nature of developmental disorders. In developmen-tal dyslexia, phonological deficit hypothesis has been considered as animportant idea. But, especially for Kanji (Chinese character), visualprocessing may be a crucial factor in reading process. Working memorymay be another important factor in reading. Researches usingmethods ofEvent Related Potentials (ERPs) will have opportunities to get usefulinformation in earlier time domain for considering such mechanismsof reading. Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is a convenient toolfor investigating reading in children. Eye movement during readingsentences is another useful information for studying reading process.Visual attention during reading can be measured well by suchpsychophysiological tool. These methods are expected that they willclarify the complicated mechanism of developmental dyslexia. Process offace recognition is a key concept for studying Autism SpectrumDisorders.Their impairments for social communication may be partly related withself-other distinction. Psychophysiological methods are very useful toinvestigate their mechanisms. In this symposium, we would like todiscuss about possibilities and usefulness of psychophysiological ap-proach for assessment and treatment of developmental disorders.

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.647

Analysis of reading and writing performances of children withdyslexia before and after treatment with sublexical method

Giuseppe A. Chiarenzaa, Federica Donisellia, Sara F. Di Pietroa,Matteo Iudicec, Eugenio Tonollib, Paola CoatibaCentro Internazionale Disturbi di Apprendimento Attenzione eIperattività (CIDAAI), Milano, ItalybUnità Operativa Neuropsichiatria dell'infanzia e dell'adolescenza(UONPIA), A.O. G. Salvini, Milano, ItalycUniversità Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano, Italy

The purpose of the study is to confirm the efficacy of arehabilitation program for children with dyslexia based on automa-tion and lexical and sublexical recognition through specific softwareto improve the accuracy and fluency in reading. The treatment wasdivided in 3 periods of 3 months each, spaced with a rest of3 months. 73 subjects, from 6 to 13 years, (mean age 10.2 s.d. 1.9)took part in the study. All of them were diagnosed as dyslexicsaccording to the DSMV criteria. To compare the performance beforeand after treatment, we used a reading and writing test (TDLS: Test,Diretto di Lettura e Scrittura) a modified and adapted Italian versionof the Boder's Test. The test, self-paced and self-regulated, iscomposed of 12 lists, each of 20 words with increasing complexitythat appear on a screen for 250 ms, “flash presentation”, and for 10 s,“sustained presentation”, when the words were not read correctly.The “reading time”, that is the period of visual perceptual processesrequired to read the word, was also recorded. Wilcoxon for paireddata and multiple linear regression tests have been used to estimatethe outcomes of the treatment on the following variables: reading

level and quotient, numbers of lists of words read before and aftertreatment, words correctly read in flash and sustained presentation,mean reading time of the words read correctly and incorrectly inboth modalities, percentage of known and unknown words spelledcorrectly and types of errors. The sublexical method shows a significantimprovement in reading level (p b 0.001, z =−6.509) and readingquotient (p b 0.001, z =−3.936) in the number of words correctly readin flash presentation (p b 0.001; z =−12.034), reduction of the readingtime in both flash (p b 0.001; z = 5.542) and sustained (p b 0.001;z = 6.453) presentation. Dysphonetic errors significantly decrease inboth readingmodalities, while the dyseidetic ones decrease significantlymore in the sustained modalities. With regard to the writing test, theimprovement is significant in both known (p b 0.001, z =−3.394) andunknown correctly written words (p b 0.01, z =−2.420). The multiplelinear regression analyses performed on the 3 treatments periodsseparately and combined confirmed the significant improvement of thepatients after the treatment. The sublexical treatment acting especiallyon the lexical route of reading, significantly improves reading time inflash presentation of 0.11 ms (t =−4.49 p b 0.001) and in sustainedpresentation of 0.47 ms (t =−6.24, p b 0.001); this reduction could be asign of a probable modification of neural connectivity.

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.648

Face recognition in children with autism spectrum disorders

Yosuke KitaNational Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan

Patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often exhibitabnormal patterns of face recognition which have attracted theattentions of both researchers and clinicians. Face contains the rich“social” information and we people, using facial information, canidentify one individual person among many and can also readfeelings of other people. Thus, the research topic of face recognitionwill yield a clue to better understanding of social impairments inASD. Here, I will introduce a part of our research findings focusing onbrain functions for face recognition in children with ASD.

First topic is facial identification. Previous studies pointed out thatASD children have specificities for self-face recognition which isknown to be a basic cognitive ability for social development. Weinvestigated neurological substrates for their self-face recognitionusing near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and eye-movement mea-surements. The subjects were healthy adult men, normally develop-ing boys, and boys with ASD. During the recognition of self-face,healthy subjects showed increased activity of right inferior frontalgryus (IFG) than left side while ASD children did not show thedominant activity. Moreover, these activities in right IFG reflectedASD severities, such that the more serious ASD characteristicscorresponded with lower activity levels. These findings suggestedthat dysfunction in the right IFG responsible for self-face recognitionis one of the crucial neural substrates underlying ASD characteristics.

Second topic is facial expression recognition. ASD children also havedifficulties in reading emotions from facial expressions. These difficul-ties become more severe and clinically evident in daily situation inwhich facial expressions can be changed immediately and unpredict-ably. In our study, we created morphing movies in that a neutral facechanged dynamically to a fearful face, and examined brain functionsduring facial expression recognition in normal adults, healthy children,and ASD children using NIRS. While the behavioral performance wasnot significantly different among the three groups, ASD childrenshowed increased brain activity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC) compared with left side. These dominant activities were notobserved in healthy subjects. These results suggested that ASD children

International Journal of Psychophysiology 94 (2014) 120–261 141