EEG microstate reconfiguration across cognitive states in preschool children with developmental language disorder

Abstract

Introduction Developmental language disorder (DLD) has been associated with atypical neural processing, but it remains unclear whether preschool children with DLD show altered EEG microstate organization across cognitive states. Most microstate studies in clinical populations have focused on resting-state activity, and much less is known about how microstate profiles vary across task contexts in young children. Methods EEG was recorded from preschool children with DLD (n = 12) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 22) during three consecutive paradigms: a video-based rest-like viewing condition (Rest), semantic picture–sound matching (Match), and passive auditory oddball listening (Oddball). Within-condition template extraction and cross-condition alignment were used to quantify conventional microstate features, including mean duration, time coverage, occurrence rate, and global explained variance (GEV). Directed transition probabilities and condition-difference Δ-transition indices were additionally summarized as exploratory descriptors of microstate switching organization. Conventional microstate features were analyzed using mixed-design repeated-measures ANOVA. Results Multiple conventional microstate features differed across Rest, Match, and Oddball, indicating that EEG microstate profiles varied across task contexts under the condition-specific template framework. In contrast, Group main effects and Group × Condition interactions did not provide robust evidence of DLD-TD differences in conventional microstate features. Full transition matrices also showed descriptive condition-related variation in switching organization, whereas group-related deviations in transition probabilities were generally small. Among the representative exploratory Δ-transition pathways, one Oddball-Match pathway showed a nominal uncorrected group difference, but this effect did not survive full-family false discovery rate correction. Discussion EEG microstate profiles in preschool children appear sensitive to task context, whereas evidence for DLD-specific microstate alterations was limited in the present sample. Because templates were extracted separately within each condition and aligned post hoc, the condition-related findings should be interpreted as descriptive evidence of task-context-related microstate organization rather than as a strict common-template test of condition effects. Larger, better-characterized samples and common-template approaches are needed to clarify whether reproducible DLD-related alterations in EEG microstate organization are present across cognitive contexts.