Infant vocal productions coincide with body movements

Producing recognizable words is a difficult motor task; a one-syllable word can require the coordination of over 80 muscles. Thus, it is not surprising that the development of word productions in infancy lags considerably behind receptive language and is a known limiting factor in language development. A large literature has focused on the vocal apparatus, its articulators, and language development. There has been limited study of the relations between non-speech motor skills and the quality of early speech productions. Here we present evidence that the spontaneous vocalizations of 9- to 24-month-old infants recruit extraneous, synergistic co-activations of hand and head movements and that the temporal precision of the co-activation of vocal and extraneous muscle groups tightens with age and improved recognizability of speech. These results implicate an interaction between the muscle groups that produce speech and other body movements and provide new empirical pathways for understanding the role of motor development in language acquisition. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: The spontaneous vocalizations of 9- to 24-month-old infants recruit extraneous, synergistic co-activations of hand and head movements. The temporal precision of these hand and head movements during vocal production tighten with age and improved speech recognition. These results implicate an interaction between the muscle groups producing speech with other body movements. These results provide new empirical pathways for understanding the role of motor development in language acquisition.