Auditory-visual Perception of Speech in Children with Learning Disabilities: The McGurk Effect

This study addressed whether or not children with learning disabilities (LD) are able to integrate auditory and visual information for speech perception. The effects of vision on speech perception can be demonstrated in a stimulus mismatch situation where unconnected auditory and visual inputs are fused into a new percept that has not been presented to either modality and represents a combination of both (McGurk Effect). It was of interest to determine if the McGurk effect was present in children with LD. Twenty children with LD and 20 normal controls, matched for sex and age, participated in this study. Participants represented a younger (6-9 years of age) and an older (10-12 years of age) group. Ten adult controls (20-40 years of age) also served as participants. Control participants demonstrated that inter-modal integration became stronger with development and experience. The response patterns of the children with LD indicated that whereas these children have some ability to integrate audio-visual speech stimuli, audio-visual speech perception did not become stronger with experience and development.