Illuminating the Language-specific and Physiological Motor-control Influences on Children's Production of Lexical Stress

人们在理解个体语音的产生方面已经取得了很大的进步，但对韵律的产生却知之甚少。重音是一种反映单字内强弱音节对比的韵律。实现这种对比的能力在健康儿童中显示出长期的发展轨迹，在一些自闭症儿童中是不典型的。这些发育影响与语言特有的运动控制因素与生理运动控制因素之间的关系尚不清楚。该项目将通过创新的声学调查来解决这一关键的研究问题。结果将触发下一代语音产生模型，可能在语音病理学等领域产生影响。

Great progress has been made in understanding the production of individual speech sounds but much less is known about the production of prosody. Lexical stress is a type of prosody that reflects the contrast between strong and weak syllables within single words. The ability to achieve this contrastivity shows a protracted developmental trajectory in healthy children and is atypical in some children with autism. How these developmental influences relate to language-specific versus physiological motor-control factors is unknown. This project will address this critical research problem via innovative acoustic investigations. Outcomes will trigger the next generation of speech production models with potential for impact in areas like speech pathology.