Correlation in Children between P300 Latency and Scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised

ABSTRACT.To clarify the correlation between P300 latency and intelligence capacity, we used two auditory discrimination paradigms (the button-pressing task and the counting task) to elicit event-related potentials (ERPs) in 50 healthy Japanese children from 5 to 16 years of age. We presented the stimuli, a series of binaural 1- and 2-kHz pure tone bursts, in random sequence. In order to evaluate our subjects' intelligence, we performed the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Revised (WISC–R) in a one-to-one manner.There was a linear regression on two tasks between P300 latencies and the WISC–R score (T-score for full-scale intelligence quotient [FSIQ], verbal IQ [VIQ], and performance IQ [PIQ]). Those correlation levels were r = −0.608 (p < 0.001) for FSIQ, r = −0.658 (p < 0.001) for VIQ, and r = −0.502 (p < 0.001) for PIQ on the button-pressing task. On this task all of the subtests (raw scores) had significant negative correlations with P300 latency. On the counting task, however, all five verbal s...