Coordination of lip muscle activity by 2-year-old children during speech and nonspeech tasks

This investigation was designed to quantify the coordinative organization of lip muscle activity of 2-year-old children during speech and nonspeech behaviors. Electromyographic (EMG) recordings of right upper and lower lip activity of seven 2-year-old children were obtained during productions of chewing, syllable repetition, lip protrusion, and speech (repeated two-word utterances) tasks. Task comparisons revealed that the coordinative organization of upper and lower lip activity is task specific; different coordinative strategies are employed for different tasks. Lip protrusion and syllable repetition tasks yielded strong coupling of upper and lower lip activity. Lip rounding (sentences containing the lip-rounding vowel /u/) and "nonlabial" speech tasks (sentences free of bilabials and lip-rounding vowels) resulted in low coupling of upper and lower lip activity. Moderate levels of coupling of upper and lower lip activity were evident for chewing and bilabial speech tasks (sentences loaded with bilabial plosion). This finding, that the coordinative elements of the perioral system of 2-year-olds are task specific, extends the results of previous studies of adults and children, where task-specific coordinative strategies were employed by the mandibular and perioral systems (Moore, 1993; Moore & Ruark, 1996; Moore, Smith, & Ringel, 1988; Wohlert & Goffman, 1994). The task-dependent coordination of the perioral system of 2-year-olds supports the notion that developing speech and earlier developing oromotor behaviors (i.e., sucking, chewing) are mediated by different control mechanisms.