Psycholinguistic Investigations of Development and Disorders of Speech Production

描述(由申请人提供)：该项目的目的是在口语发展、儿童语音障碍和声学分析领域为候选人提供额外的职业发展培训，使候选人能够建立一个富有成效的研究计划，以实现以下长期目标：1)根据所涉及的不同处理阶段，促进口语产生的典型发展的知识；2)更详细地了解这些处理阶段的干扰可能导致的儿童语音障碍；以及3)弥合基础科学和临床应用之间的差距。为实现这一目的，该项目既包括职业发展活动，也包括一项研究计划，旨在深入了解一般发育中儿童以及患有不明来源的言语发音障碍儿童的言语发音的表征和实时过程。一些实验将计时范例与语音声学分析相结合，以解决语音规划单元(例如，音素)的出现及其在语音规划过程中的部署，以及假设影响这些单元出现的一些因素(例如，词汇量、语音运动技能)。拟议的研究侧重于5至10岁的儿童，因为人们对这一年龄段的言语发展知之甚少，尽管言语产生的发展在5岁时并不完全，可能会影响识字发展。这项研究计划的一个主要长期目标是增加我们对未知来源的语音障碍的了解，特别是关于不同类型的障碍所影响的不同计划阶段，如语音障碍和儿童言语失用。计时-声学相结合的方法可以进一步区分患有语音障碍的儿童，并在诊断和治疗方面对这些儿童的临床服务提供影响。 公共卫生相关性：患有原因不明的言语发音障碍的儿童占言语语言病理学家的临床病例的很大一部分。对这些疾病的性质缺乏完整的了解，使鉴别诊断和治疗变得复杂。这项研究将加深我们对言语规划和产生的典型和非典型发展的理解，并对诊断和治疗有所启示。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of the proposed project is to provide the candidate with additional career development training in the areas of spoken language development, speech sound disorders in children, and acoustic analysis, to enable the candidate to establish a productive research program geared towards the long-term goals of 1) advancing knowledge of typical development of spoken language production in terms of the various processing stages involved, 2) gaining a more detailed understanding of speech sound disorders in children that may result from disruptions at these processing stages, and 3) bridging the gap between basic science and clinical application. To achieve this purpose, the project includes both career development activities and a research plan designed to gain insight into the representations and real time processes involved in speech sound production in typically developing children as well as in children with speech sound disorders of unknown origin. Several experiments combine chronometric paradigms with speech acoustic analyses to address the emergence of speech planning units (e.g., phonemes) and their deployment in the speech planning process, as well as a number of factors that have been postulated to influence the emergence of these units (e.g., vocabulary size, speech motor skill). The proposed studies focus on children in the age range of 5 to 10 years old, because relatively little is known about speech development in this age range, despite the fact that development of speech production is not complete at age 5 and may affect literacy development. A major long-term goal of this research program is to increase our understanding of speech sound disorders of unknown origin, in particular with respect to the different planning stages affected in different types of disorders such as phonological disorders and childhood apraxia of speech. A combined chronometric-acoustic approach may enable a further delineation and differentiation among children with speech sound disorders, with implications for clinical service delivery for these children in terms of both diagnosis and treatment. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Children with speech sound disorders of unknown origin comprise a large part of the clinical caseload for speech-language pathologists. A complete understanding of the nature of these disorders is lacking, complicating differential diagnosis and treatment. This research will enhance our understanding of typical and atypical development of speech planning and production, with implications for diagnosis and treatment.