Early Speech Motor Development

描述(申请人提供)：本申请的主要目的是确定儿童在早期言语发展过程中获得的基本口述运动技能，以及在言语发展过程中导致个体差异的因素。其具体目的是(1)识别语前口面部行为的运动特征，(2)识别作为早期语音能力基础的发音能力的发展变化，(3)识别影响早期言语运动发育速度的说话人因素，(4)识别婴儿定向言语的发音特征。从3个月到33个月，每3个月对30名儿童进行纵向研究。在每个年龄段，将收集口述运动能力、语音能力、头面部发育、接受性和表现性语言发展以及一般运动发展的测量结果。将使用光学运动捕捉系统来量化各种语音和非语音行为的颅面大小和口面部运动学的发展变化。还将从每个儿童的照顾者那里收集口面部运动学数据，以考察父母的发音风格和早期发音能力之间的潜在关系。潜在成长模型将被用来表征言语和口述动作能力的个体发展模式，并量化口述动作能力、语音能力和其他发展领域技能的增长率之间的关联强度。这项研究将提供有关早期发音发展过程的基本信息，以及生理、解剖和语言过程对早期言语发展的影响。这些规范性描述将作为评估言语运动障碍儿童损害程度的参考数据，并将为专注于改善潜在运动能力的言语治疗提供适合发育的指南。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary objective of this application is to identify essential oromotor skills that children obtain during early speech development and factors that contribute to individual variation in the course of speech development. The specific aims are (1) to identify the movement characteristics of prespeech orofacial behaviors, (2) to identify developmental changes in articulatory performance that underlie early phonetic ability, (3) to identify speaker factors that influence the rate of early speech motor development, and (4) to identify the articulatory characteristics of infant-directed speech. Thirty children will be studied longitudinally every 3 months from 3 to 33 months of age. At each age, measures of oromotor performance, phonetic ability, craniofacial growth, receptive and expressive language development, and general-motor development will be gathered. An optical motion-capture system will be used to quantify developmental changes in craniofacial size and orofacial kinematics for a wide range of speech and non-speech behaviors. Orofacial kinematic data will also be collected from each child's caregiver during infant-directed and adult-directed speech to examine the potential relationship between parental articulation style and early articulatory performance. Latent growth modeling will be used to characterize individual patterns of development in speech and oromotor performance and to quantify the strength of association between the rates of growth in oromotor performance, phonetic ability, and skills in other developmental domains. This study will provide essential information regarding the developmental course of early articulatory development and the influence of physiologic, anatomic, and linguistic processes on early speech development. These normative descriptions will serve as reference data for gauging the degree of impairment in children with speech motor disorders, and will provide developmentally appropriate guidelines for speech-treatment focused on improving underlying movement competencies.