Establishing the Role of Sensorimotor Skills in Speech Development and Disorders

项目总结/摘要 患有言语声音障碍（SSD）的儿童承受着负面的社会和学术后果，这些后果可能会影响他们的生活。 如果他们的言语错误得不到及时纠正， [1]的文件。在患有SSD的儿童中，那些运动参与的儿童被认为最有可能发展为持续性的 言语错误[2]，但测量运动存在的手段有很大的局限性 参与。本提案的总体目标是开发一种直接测量运动参与的方法 同时测量与发育成人样语言困难相关的感觉因素。 根据DIVA理论框架，熟练的言语产生包括使用听觉和听觉- matosensory反馈，以指导运动执行[3]，这表明，在听觉和 躯体感觉敏锐度可能与语言-运动结果有关。本研究探讨了相对控制- 运动执行技能和躯体感觉敏锐度在各种音素的发展中的作用 年幼和年长的孩子。作为一个指标的运动执行技能，我们使用语言复杂性措施提取 从超声图像[4，5，6]。作为躯体感觉技能的指标，我们使用口腔立体感任务[7，8，9] 同时控制更好研究的可变听觉敏锐度。 第一个目标是建立语言复杂度和发音成熟度之间的关系。 rity作为年龄和疾病状态。我们的中心假设是语言的复杂性将与这些言语有关 结果。也就是说，根据试点数据显示，语言的复杂性在年龄较大的儿童比在年龄较小的儿童更高， 儿童在音素/r/的产生中，我们假设语言的复杂性在年龄较大的儿童中会更高 比年幼的孩子更明显，特别是在后期发展的音素上。此外，基于以前的工作[6]，我们 假设语言复杂性在正常发育儿童的正确产出中会比在正常发育儿童的正确产出中高， 在不正确的生产与SSD的儿童。 第二个目的是了解躯体感觉敏锐度和语言复杂度之间的关系 并比较不同疾病状态组的躯体感觉敏锐度。精度 感觉目标的变化可能在个人更新和微调运动计划的能力中发挥作用[10]，因此我们的 工作假设是，具有高躯体感觉敏锐度的儿童将具有相对较高的语言复杂性， 对于躯体感觉敏锐度低的儿童，SSD儿童的躯体感觉敏锐度高于 典型的发育中的儿童。 对不同年龄和临床特征的个体的语言复杂性进行量化是一个重要的先决条件， 了解运动因素在儿童非成人言语模式中的相对重要性。理解 语言复杂性和躯体感觉技能相对贡献可能有助于指导临床医生进行治疗 个性化的方法，以针对SSD儿童的感觉运动技能缺陷[11]。

Project Summary/Abstract Children with speech sound disorder (SSD) endure negative social and academic consequences that may mani- fest as life-long personal and professional obstacles if their speech errors are not remediated in a timely manner [1]. Among children with SSD, those with motor involvement are considered the most likely to develop persistent speech errors [2], but there are significant limitations to the means available for measuring the presence of motor involvement. The overall objective of the present proposal is to develop a direct measure of motor involvement while measuring related sensory factors associated with difficulty developing adult-like speech. According to the DIVA theoretical framework, skilled speech production involves using auditory and so- matosensory feedback to guide motor execution [3], which suggests that individual differences in auditory and somatosensory acuity may be relevant for speech-motor outcomes. The current study explores the relative contri- butions of motor execution skill and somatosensory acuity in the development of various phonemes produced by younger and older children. As an index of motor execution skill, we use lingual complexity measures extracted from ultrasound images [4, 5, 6]. As the index of somatosensory skill, we use an oral stereognosis task [7, 8, 9] while controlling for the better-studied variable auditory acuity. The first aim is to establish the relationship between lingual complexity and such indices of articulatory matu- rity as age and disorder status. Our central hypothesis is that lingual complexity will be related with these speech outcomes. That is, based on pilot data showing that lingual complexity is higher in older children than in younger children in productions of the phoneme /r/, we hypothesize that lingual complexity will be higher in older children than in younger children specifically for later-developing phonemes. In addition, based on previous work [6], we hypothesize that lingual complexity will be higher in the correct productions of typically-developing children than in the incorrect productions of children with SSD. The second aim is to understand the relationship between somatosensory acuity and lingual complexity across individuals and to compare somatosensory acuity across groups differing in disorder status. Precision of sensory goals is likely to play a role in an individual's ability to update and fine-tune motor plans [10], so our working hypotheses are that children with high somatosensory acuity will have higher lingual complexity relative to children with low somatosensory acuity and that children with SSD will have higher somatosensory acuity than typically-developing children. Quantification of lingual complexity in individuals varying in age and clinical profile is a crucial prerequisite for understanding the relative importance of motor factors in children's non-adult-like speech patterns. Understanding the relative contribution of lingual complexity and somatosensory skill may help guide clinicians toward treatment approaches that are personalized to target the deficit sensorimotor skill [11] for children with SSD.