This study explored whether EEG data could be used to detect language processing in individual children. While the N400 effect is considered a robust marker of lexical-semantic violation at the group level, could it also be used as a marker at the individual level? To explore this, 20 neurotypical children were presented with congruent and incongruent visual animations and spoken sentences while their neural response was measured using EEG. Using unconstrained multivariate decoding of EEG data, neural responses to lexico-semantic anomalies were detected in 65% of the children tested. These findings suggest that this technique may hold promise as a method to detect intact semantic comprehension in individuals, particularly in children with conditions such as minimally-verbal autism where standard language comprehension tests are often unreliable.
Link to paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67407-6
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