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Speech motor development: Integrating muscles, movements, and linguistic units
1Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. asmith@purdue.edu
Journal of Communication Disorders
|August 29, 2006
Summary
Human speech production involves complex interactions between language and motor systems. Studies show developmental differences in how speech motor skills and linguistic units map to actions from infancy through adulthood.
Area of Science:
- Speech motor control
- Language processing
- Developmental linguistics
Background:
- Models of speech motor control and language processing use theoretically distant concepts.
- Adult speech production involves parallel processing across sentence, phrase, syllable, and phoneme levels.
- Infants must develop integrated language and motor systems for speech.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review studies on speech motor performance during development in relation to linguistic goals.
- To understand the development of interactions between speech motor and language systems.
- To provide an experimental basis for theories on language-action mappings.
Main Methods:
- Review of literature on speech motor performance in children, teenagers, and young adults.
- Analysis of studies comparing speech and limb motor control.
- Examination of experimental methods for studying speech production.
Main Results:
- Speech motor performance shows qualitative and quantitative differences between developing and mature systems.
- Coarticulation complicates the role of linguistic units like syllables and phonemes in speech production.
- Developmental studies reveal insights into how language units map to motor actions.
Conclusions:
- Understanding the development of speech motor control is crucial for explaining human communication.
- Experimental data on speech development informs theoretical models of language production.
- Further research is needed to fully elucidate the formation and function of language-action mappings.
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