Temporal and Fronto-Central Auditory Evoked Responses in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Scoping Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

thank you for providing your manuscript to this ineresting topic.

Please find my minor recommendations attached.

In addition, I think the work would benefit from aspects known from CAEP in patients with hearing loss. Maybe not only using acoustic stimuli from tones to sounds up to words or even sentences but also when using electric stimulation, e.g. test electrodes before or intracochlear CI array electrodes after cochlear implantation.

BR

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback.

All comments were related to misspelling and adding ''the'' before nouns. I have covered all the comments point by point and have highlighted them.

Regarding the comments on CI children, my paper was looking at neurodevelopmental disorders who have normal hearing but listening difficulties and it is why they have comorbidity. 

Best 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is a very interesting and timely study that attempted to uncover what is known about central auditory processing problems in individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions. This is a timely and critical topic.

I only have a few minor comments.

What precisely is “small literature”?

Please check the spelling and syntax, including the material submitted as an Appendix (e.g., in Table 1, please remove personal comments, such as “(7 female, in supplementary table which I could not find “ or “Duplicated excluded” in Appendix 4).

Please use the original PRISMA diagram (https://www.prisma-statement.org/prisma-2020-flow-diagram) and cite PRISMA. Show the flow diagram as a figure in the main body of your manuscript and not as an Appendix. Add explanations as to how the decisions were made.

Please add a list of abbreviations used in this article (after Conclusions and before the Appendix files).

For the T complex, I suggest showing the results in tabular form. Perhaps modifying Table 1 could be considered? It is difficult to see which study demonstrated shorter or longer latencies or smaller or larger amplitudes in which study population. The abnormalities should also be listed and somehow systematized. Perhaps adding a summarizing figure could be a solution here?

The first sentence in the Discussion needs to be revised. It reads now: “This study reviewed the impact of neurodevelopmental disorders on T-complex and fronto-central responses.“ The authors did not examine the effects of the disorders studied on T-complex and fronto-central responses. Instead, they reviewed the evidence for the presence and quality of abnormal central auditory responses in patients with neurodevelopmental disorders. The term 'impact' suggests that a particular disorder directly affects the T-complex - but is this really the case?

 

The authors write (Lines 95-98), “However, more research with diverse study design is warranted to verify the differences in underlying mechanisms manifested by these two responses (Bishop et al., 2011; Bishop et al., 2012; Wagner et al., 2017). Accordingly, now is the time for a review to summarize what we know, and guide where we should go in this research.” This sounds like an overall goal of this work, but the research guidelines are difficult to find in the Discussion. Mentioning that more research needs to be done here or there is vague. Please provide more information in the “Future Directions” or modify the sentence in the Introduction. 

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback.

Commen 1t: What precisely is “small literature”? Response: Before writing this paper, I checked to see how many papers I could generally find. After searching four databases, I ended up with around 40 articles related to the T-complex, which seemed small compared to when I wanted to collect all papers related to, for instance, N1-P2. So, I wrote small. However, I have removed this part,line 109, as I agree it could confuse the audience!

Comments: Please check the spelling and syntax, including the material submitted as an Appendix (e.g., in Table 1, please remove personal comments, such as “(7 female, in the supplementary table which I could not find “ or “Duplicated excluded” in Appendix 4). Response: I have checked the spelling and syntax, I remove the '' in the supplementary table which I could not find '' and also re-write the ''Duplicated excluded'' to Exclude duplicates. 

Comment 2: Please use the original PRISMA diagram (https://www.prisma-statement.org/prisma-2020-flow-diagram) and cite PRISMA. Show the flow diagram as a figure in the main body of your manuscript and not as an Appendix. Add explanations as to how the decisions were made. Response: I have revised the table and referenced it.  I have also removed it's position from the appendix to page 5 after the method.  

Comment 3: Please add a list of abbreviations used in this article (after Conclusions and before the Appendix files). Response: It is done and it is added afte the conclusion. 

Comment 4: For the T complex, I suggest showing the results in tabular form. Perhaps modifying Table 1 could be considered? It is difficult to see which study demonstrated shorter or longer latencies or smaller or larger amplitudes in which study population. The abnormalities should also be listed and somehow systematized. Perhaps adding a summarizing figure could be a solution here? Response: I have divided Table 1 into A and B. In Table B, I have put the results to make it easier to follow. Also, the summary of findings has been inserted in the results.  Also, I have divided the results into latency and amplitude for T-complex. 

Comment 5:The first sentence in the Discussion needs to be revised. It reads now: “This study reviewed the impact of neurodevelopmental disorders on T-complex and fronto-central responses.“ The authors did not examine the effects of the disorders studied on T-complex and fronto-central responses. Instead, they reviewed the evidence for the presence and quality of abnormal central auditory responses in patients with neurodevelopmental disorders. The term 'impact' suggests that a particular disorder directly affects the T-complex - but is this really the case? Response: I agree, I have replaced the word of impact to evidence and rewritten the whole sentence, 

Comment 6: The authors write (Lines 95-98), “However, more research with diverse study design is warranted to verify the differences in underlying mechanisms manifested by these two responses (Bishop et al., 2011; Bishop et al., 2012; Wagner et al., 2017). Accordingly, now is the time for a review to summarize what we know, and guide where we should go in this research.” This sounds like an overall goal of this work, but the research guidelines are difficult to find in the Discussion. Mentioning that more research needs to be done here or there is vague. Please provide more information in the “Future Directions” or modify the sentence in the Introduction. Response: I agree, I have removed this part in the introduction, Line 83. 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study underscores the significance of the T-complex in assessing auditory processing impairments across neurodevelopmental disorders and advocates for further research into its utility as a diagnostic tool while illuminating the limitations inherent in the current body of literature. Study accepted in the present form

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor

 

I have read the Manuscript entitled: "Temporal and frontocentral auditory evoked responses in children with neurodevelopmental disorders: a scoping review" submitted to Journal of NeuroSci. The topic is definitely relevant and very important. The findings of the review article can be of interest to the readers and may have important implications for professionals in the clinic.

 

I would like to suggest some minor revisions to the manuscript before publication.

Figure 1: the image is too dark, please make it clearer

 

Table 1: this is the most significant part of the results section, however, it was very hard to follow the results described, and must be organized much better, so that the reader can follow.

The columns of experimental group and control group add a third column of age.

In the column of AEPs maybe add also what was measured (latency, amplitude and RT)

In the column of results please delete all information that was not reported. for example: Bishop et al 2012 delete (only Ta was the interest of the study". or for Bruneau et al 2003 please delete "Ta was not reported" and so on.

I would consider separating one column for latency and one for amplitude

There is a need for much less wording. For example: Bruneau et al 1999 longer latency of N1c for AUT, and delete the beginning of the sentence "There was the"

In the second paragraph leave just the important information: N1b and N1c showed longer latency and smaller amplitude among AUT compared to normal children

Please insert such changes for the entire table

 

Line 193: no need for J.A.

Line 285: remove :

 

Study characteristics: You should add a section referring to the different stimuli used in the different studies

 

In the conclusion section there is need to add a space line 397 and 399

 

Appendix 1: seems unnecessary since it all appears in the methods section

Appendix 3: once again the table most be reorganized with less wording (especially Taylor 2003 type of stimulus)

 

Author Response

Comment 1: Figure 1: the image is too dark, please make it clearer. Response: I have replaced it with new picture which is much clearer, line 45. 

Comment 2: Table 1: this is the most significant part of the results section, however, it was very hard to follow the results described, and must be organized much better, so that the reader can follow. Response: I have removed and put the results on another table to make it easier to follow. 

Comment 3: The columns of the experimental group and control group add a third column of age. Response: I have added a third column between the experimental and control groups and put the age data of the experimental groups which is easier to read now. 

Comment 4: In the column of AEPs maybe add also what was measured (latency, amplitude and RT). Response: I have added a column for what is measured in table 1-B. However I did not put RT, because it is not reaction time, it is the rise time and stimuli feature (independent variable).

Comment 5: In the column of results please delete all information that was not reported. for example: Bishop et al 2012 delete (only Ta was the interest of the study". or for Bruneau et al 2003 please delete "Ta was not reported" and so on. Response: I agree and it is done. 

Comment 6: I would consider separating one column for latency and one for amplitude. Response: I have divided results of T-complex into separate columns for latency and amplitude. 

Comment 7: There is a need for much less wording. For example, Bruneau et al 1999 longer latency of N1c for AUT, and deleted the beginning of the sentence "There was the". Response: I have revised all results to make them shorter and easy to follow. 

Comment 8: In the second paragraph leave just the important information: N1b and N1c showed longer latency and smaller amplitude among AUT compared to normal children. Response: I agree and revised it. 

Comment 9. Line 193: no need for J.A (Revised). 

Comment 10: Line 285: remove : , Response: Done. 

 

Comment 11: Study characteristics: You should add a section referring to the different stimuli used in the different studies: I have added a separate part for stimuli features in line 202. 

Comment 12. In the conclusion section there is need to add a space line 397 and 399. Response: Done. 

 

Comment 13. Appendix 1: seems unnecessary since it all appears in the methods section, Response: I agree and removed. 

Comment 14, Appendix 3: once again the table most be reorganized with less wording (especially Taylor 2003 type of stimulus), Response : Done.