Investigating and Comparing Language Components in 7-12-Year-Old Cerebral Palsy and Healthy Children by Focusing on the Quantitative Electroencephalography Topographic Maps

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a movement disorder caused by a non-progressive brain lesion and its symptoms appear in the form of developmental damages. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the Quantitative Electroencephalography (qEEG) signals upon carrying out a speech and language task and to compare the components of language function and common spatial patterns extracted from children with cerebral palsy and healthy ones. In this study, 17 children with CP and 40 healthy children aged from 7 to 12 were studied. In order to evaluate the phonetic, phonological, syntactic, and semantic features of the language in the CP group in comparison to healthy control participants, a Test of Language Development (TOLD) was employed. To examine their electrophysiological signals on the basis of amplitude and frequency of brain waves, as well as brain connectivity across spectral bands, the 16-channel quantitative electroencephalography was used. In addition, the qualitative evaluation and output of the language development test were reported to determine the areas in need of improvement in both healthy and cerebral palsy groups. The results of this study showed that children with cerebral palsy had significant problems in the sub-scales of the language development test as compared to healthy children. It was also observed that children with cerebral palsy scored the lowest score in the grammatical completion subtest. The qEEG-based brain mapping revealed a significant difference in the amplitude of waves and brain connectivity in the area needing improvement between the two groups.