Feasibility of event-related potential (ERP) biomarker use to study effects of mother’s voice exposure on speech sound differentiation of preterm infants

Atypical maturation of auditory neural processing contributes to preterm-born infants’ language delays. Event-Related Potential (ERP) measurement of speech-sound differentiation might fill a gap in treatment-response biomarkers to auditory interventions. We evaluated whether these markers could measure treatment effects in a quasi-randomized prospective study. Hospitalized preterm infants in passive or active, suck-contingent mother’s voice exposure groups were not different at baseline. Post-intervention, the active group had greater increases in /du/-/gu/differentiation in left frontal and temporal regions. Infants with brain injury had lower baseline /ba/-/ga/and /du/-/gu/ differentiation than those without. ERP provides valid discriminative, responsive, and predictive biomarkers of infant speech-sound differentiation.