Objectives: Biomarkers of major depressive disorder (MDD), its phases and forms have long been sought. Objectives were to examine whether the complexity of EEG activity, measured by Higuchi's fractal dimension (HFD) and sample entropy (SampEn), differs between healthy subjects, patients in remission, and in episode phase of the recurrent depression and whether the changes are differentially distributed between hemispheres and cortical regions.Methods: Resting state EEG with eyes closed was recorded from 22 patients suffering from recurrent depression (11 in remission, 11 in the episode), and 20 age and sex‐matched healthy control subjects. Artifact‐free EEG epochs were analyzed by in‐house developed programs running HFD and SampEn algorithms.Results: Depressed patients had higher HFD and SampEn complexity compared to healthy subjects. The complexity was higher in patients who were in remission than in those in the acute episode. Altered complexity was present in the frontal and centro‐parietal regions when compared to control group. The complexity in frontal and parietal regions differed between the two phases of depressive disorder.Conclusions: Complexity measures of EEG distinguish between the healthy controls, patients in remission and episode. Further studies are needed to establish whether these measures carry a potential to aid clinically relevant decisions about depression.

In addition to difficulties in social interaction and communication, children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) also exhibit behaviors that interfere with daily activities and are difficult to control, which can lead to disturbances in the household and extended family. The child's limited social, emotional and communicative abilities, their unequal cognitive development and maladaptive behaviors are a source of stress for parents. The goal of our study was to assess the level of stress in parents of children with ASD in relation to gender, education, age of parents, the child's age, and speech and language skills. The sample of this study consisted of 40 parents (20 mothers and 20 fathers) 21 to 56 years of age. All respondents were parents of children with ASD; 22 were parents of children receiving treatment at the Institute for Experimental Phonetics and Speech Pathology "Đorđe Kostić" and 18 parents were members of the Association of parents of children with autism. In this study, we used The Parental Stress Scale (Berry & Jones, 1995) to assess the level of stress among parents. The results show that there are no statistically significant differences in the level of stress in relation to parental sex, parental age, the child's age and child's expressive language development. We found a statistically significant effect of parental education level (p=0.005), child's receptive language development (p=0.008), and child's verbal communication development (p=0.015) on parental stress level. Parental lower education level, child's inability to understand speech, and undeveloped verbal communication of the child can lead to greater parental stress. The stress of parents can significantly complicate and slow down the process of child rehabilitation. It is important to know that it is equally necessary to support fathers and mothers, parents of all ages, parents of children of all ages and different speech and language skills and that particular attention should be given to parents with lower education.

The current study is a preliminary examination of cognitive profiles and cortical distribution of the spectral power of different electroencephalogram (EEG) rhythms in children with specific language impairment and subclinical epileptiform discharges. Although a number of empirical studies point to higher incidence of abnormal EEGs in children with specific language impairment, only a few studies were found examining electrophysiological characteristics, such as locus of discharges and connections with cognitive functioning in this population of children. The sample included 12 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and abnormal EEG who underwent testing of cognitive functioning using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). The control sample included 13 children with specific language impairment and regular EEG. Results point to lower scores on several subtests of the performance scale for children with abnormal EEG than for the group with regular EEG. Detailed EEG analysis of cortical distribution of the spectral power of different EEG rhythms partially confirms the results of neuropsychological assessment, pointing to abnormal function of frontal and temporal regions. Higher values of spectral power of the delta brain rhythm in frontal regions are associated with lower results on the WISC performance scale. Results are discussed in the context of subgroups of the population of children with SLI.

Auditory processing in children diagnosed with speech and language impairment (SLI) is atypical and characterized by reduced brain activation compared to typically developing (TD) children. In typical speech and language development processes, frontal, temporal, and posterior regions are engaged during single-word listening, while for non-word listening, it is highly unlikely that perceiving or speaking them is not followed by frequent neurones’ activation enough to form stable network connections. This study aimed to investigate the electrophysiological cortical activity of alpha rhythm while listening words and non-words in children with SLI compared to TD children. The participants were 50 children with SLI, aged 4 to 6, and 50 age-related TD children. Groups were divided into 2 subgroups: first subgroup – children aged 4.0 to 5.0 years old (E = 25, C = 25) and second subgroup – children aged 5.0 to 6.0 years old (E = 25, C = 25). The younger children’s group did not show statistically significant differences in alpha spectral power in word or non-word listening. In contrast, in the older age group for word and non-word listening, differences were present in the prefrontal, temporal, and parieto-occipital regions bilaterally. Children with SLI showed a certain lack of alpha desynchronization in word and non-word listening compared with TD children. Non-word perception arouses more brain regions because of the unknown presence of the word stimuli. The lack of adequate alpha desynchronization is consistent with established difficulties in lexical and phonological processing at the behavioral level in children with SLI.