Impaired cortical encoding of prosodic prominence in single multisyllabic words for adults with dyslexia
- 1University of Cambridge
Abstract
Developmental dyslexia is associated with impaired cortical tracking of continuous speech and difficulties in perceiving within-word prosodic structure in children and adults. For adults and continuous speech, both low-frequency delta- and theta-band impairments and high-frequency gamma- and beta-band differences are found. To date, perceptual difficulties with intra-word prosody have not been studied in direct relation to neural speech encoding. Here neurotypical adults and adults with dyslexia listened to multisyllabic words. EEG was recorded, and cortical encoding was quantified using temporal response function (TRF) modelling. Four speech representations were explored: lexical stress pattern (intra-word prosodic prominence), the low-frequency speech envelope, word onsets and syllable onsets. Adults with dyslexia showed significantly reduced encoding of intra-word prosodic prominence (delta band) and of the speech envelope (delta and theta bands). In contrast, encoding of word and syllable onsets was preserved. Pinpointing delta-band cortical tracking as central to encoding intra-word prosodic prominence opens new avenues for research.
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BibTeX
@misc{keshavarzi2026impaired,
title = {{Impaired cortical encoding of prosodic prominence in single multisyllabic words for adults with dyslexia}},
author = {M. Keshavarzi and B. C. J. Moore and U. Goswami},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.25.754341},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.25.754341v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Impaired cortical encoding of prosodic prominence in single multisyllabic words for adults with dyslexia
AU - M. Keshavarzi
AU - B. C. J. Moore
AU - U. Goswami
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/25
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.25.754341
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.25.754341v1
AB - Developmental dyslexia is associated with impaired cortical tracking of continuous speech and difficulties in perceiving within-word prosodic structure in children and adults. For adults and continuous speech, both low-frequency delta- and theta-band impairments and high-frequency gamma- and beta-band differences are found. To date, perceptual difficulties with intra-word prosody have not been studied in direct relation to neural speech encoding. Here neurotypical adults and adults with dyslexia listened to multisyllabic words. EEG was recorded, and cortical encoding was quantified using temporal response function (TRF) modelling. Four speech representations were explored: lexical stress pattern (intra-word prosodic prominence), the low-frequency speech envelope, word onsets and syllable onsets. Adults with dyslexia showed significantly reduced encoding of intra-word prosodic prominence (delta band) and of the speech envelope (delta and theta bands). In contrast, encoding of word and syllable onsets was preserved. Pinpointing delta-band cortical tracking as central to encoding intra-word prosodic prominence opens new avenues for research.
ER -