Auditory frequency discrimination has been used as an index of sensory processing in developmental language disorders such as dyslexia, where group differences have often been interpreted as evidence for a basic deficit in auditory processing that underpins and constrains individual variability in the development of phonological skills. Here, we conducted a meta‐analysis to evaluate the cumulative evidence for group differences in frequency discrimination and to explore the impact of some potential moderator variables that could contribute to variability in effect‐size estimations across studies. Our analyses revealed mean effect sizes for group differences on frequency discrimination tasks on the order of three‐quarters of a standard deviation, but in the presence of substantial inter‐study variability in their magnitude. Moderator variable analyses indicated that factors related both to participant variability on behavioural and cognitive variables associated with the dyslexia phenotype, and to variability in the task design, contributed to differences in the magnitude of effect size across studies. The apparently complex pattern of results was compounded by the lack of concurrent, standardised metrics of cognitive and reading component skills across the constituent studies. Differences on sensory processing tasks are often reported in studies of developmental disorders, but these need to be more carefully interpreted in the context of non‐sensory factors, which may explain significant inter‐ and intra‐group variance in the dependent measure of interest.

中文翻译：

---

发展性阅读障碍的听觉频率歧视：一项荟萃分析

听觉频率歧视已被用作发展性语言障碍（如诵读困难症）中感觉处理的指标，其中群体差异通常被解释为听觉处理中基本缺陷的证据，该缺陷支撑并限制了语音技能发展中的个体变异性。在这里，我们进行了荟萃分析，以评估频率歧视中群体差异的累积证据，并探讨某些潜在的调节剂变量的影响，这些变量可能会影响整个研究中效应量估计的可变性。我们的分析显示，在频率歧视任务上，小组差异的平均效应大小约为标准偏差的四分之三，但研究幅度存在较大的研究间差异。主持人变量分析表明，与参与者的阅读障碍表型相关的行为和认知变量的变异性以及任务设计中的变异性有关的因素，导致整个研究中效应量大小的差异。在组成研究中，缺乏并发，标准化的认知和阅读成分技能标准指标，使得结果的表象复杂。在发育障碍的研究中常报告感觉处理任务上的差异，但需要在非感觉因素的背景下更仔细地解释这些差异，这可能解释了在感兴趣的相关量度中组间和组内的显着差异。