Altered gray matter volumes in language-associated regions in children with developmental language disorder and speech sound disorder

Abstract

Developmental language disorder (DLD) and speech sound disorder (SSD) are common, and although scientific evidence for structural and functional alterations in DLD/SSD is accumulating, current neuroimaging studies provide an incongruent picture. Here, we hypothesized that children affected by DLD and SSD present with gray matter (or gray matter asymmetry) aberrations in brain areas associated with language processing compared to typically developing (TD) children. To assess this hypothesis, we enhanced MRI-based information with microscopically defined cytoarchitectonic probabilities of Broca’s area (BA 45, BA 44) as well as an auditory area (TE 3.0). We detected a larger rightward gray matt..