PHYSIOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF STUTTERING

口吃是一种语言障碍，患病率估计为1%， 占世界学龄儿童人口的一半。往往是 对个人来说，严重的沟通问题，限制了教育 就业机会以及社会和心理调整。的 口吃的病因不明，标准化，成功的治疗方法 还没有被开发出来。的主要障碍 了解口吃的病因和发展， 成功的治疗技术是缺乏对 疾病的生理基础。口吃表现为 语言运动过程的崩溃已知的影响 口吃的发生，如情绪状态或语言 复杂性，最终必须对生理事件产生影响， 这是生产演讲所必需的。因此，要理解 了解口吃的生理机制至关重要 口吃中言语运动过程的潜在中断。 本申请中提出的研究解决了这种一般性的问题。 问：与运动障碍相关的运动障碍的性质是什么？ 口吃？具体目的是：（1）确定运动过程是否 表明口吃者的大脑中存在持续的潜在干扰， 言语，（2）评估言语运动控制是否失败， 口吃与自主神经系统活动和/或 代谢呼吸控制，（3）开发新的分析指标 与语音相关的生理信号，并应用这些新的指标 评估口吃，（4）发展模式识别 算法，以确定是否有一组一致的生理 与口吃相关的事件。拟议研究的结果和 过去几年完成的项目应有助于我们 理解口吃这一复杂的人类行为。此外，本发明还提供了一种方法， 该项目的工作对正常的研究具有重要意义。 语言产生和各种运动性语言障碍， 神经受损的人。

Stuttering is a disorder of speech with a prevalence estimated to be 1 % of the world's population of school-age children. It is often a significant communicative problem for the individual, limiting educational and employment opportunities and social and psychological adjustment. The etiology of stuttering is unknown, and standardized, successful treatments for stuttering have not been developed. A major impediment to understanding the etiology of stuttering and to the development of successful therapeutic techniques is the lack of understanding of the physiological bases of the disorder. Stuttering manifests itself as a breakdown in speech motor processes. The complex variables known to affect the occurrence of stuttering, such as emotional state or linguistic complexity, must ultimately have an effect on the physiological events necessary for the production of speech. Therefore, to understand stuttering it is essential to understand the physiological mechanisms underlying disruptions of speech motor processes in stuttering. The research proposed in the present application addresses this general question: What is the nature of the movement disorder associated with stuttering? The specific aims are (1) to determine whether motor processes show evidence of continuous, underlying disturbances in stutterers' speech, (2) to assess whether failures in speech movement control in stuttering are related to autonomic nervous system activity and/or to metabolic respiratory control, (3) to develop new metrics for the analysis of physiological signals related to speech and to apply these new metrics to the assessment of stuttering, and (4) to develop pattern recognition algorithms to determine if there is a consistent set of physiological events associated with stuttering. The results of the proposed studies and those completed in the past years of this project should help us to understand the complex human behavior that is stuttering. In addition, work on this project has significant implications for the study of normal speech production and a variety of motor speech disorders that occur in neurologically impaired individuals.