Proprioceptive Acuity Influences Speech Motor Control in Healthy Adult Talkers.

PURPOSE: Somatosensory feedback, including proprioception, is important for speech production. This study evaluates proprioceptive acuity of the tongue using a position-matching task and determining if proprioceptive acuity impacts speech motor control in healthy adult talkers. METHOD: Twenty-five young adults with no history of speech, language, or hearing disorders had their tongue movements recorded with an electromagnetic articulograph while completing a position-matching task. Participants were also asked to repeat two sentences that differed in the somatosensory feedback obtained. One sentence provided both tactile and proprioceptive feedback, whereas the other primarily provided proprioceptive feedback. RESULTS: Participants ranged in proprioceptive acuity as measured by the position-matching task. Talkers with smaller position-matching errors and, therefore, higher proprioceptive acuity had smaller movements and slower speeds for both sentences. Talkers with lower proprioceptive acuity had reduced speech movement stability for the sentence that primarily provides proprioceptive feedback. CONCLUSION: Proprioceptive acuity of the tongue can be evaluated using a position-matching task, and acuity is associated with more efficient speech movements and greater speech movement stability, particularly when producing utterances that provide less tactile feedback. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24293740.

Initial Observations of Lingual Movement Characteristics of Children With Cerebral Palsy.

Purpose: This preliminary study compared the speech motor control of the tongue and jaw between children with cerebral palsy (CP) and their typically developing (TD) peers. Method: Tongue tip and jaw movements of 4 boys with spastic CP and 4 age- and sex-matched TD peers were recorded using an electromagnetic articulograph during 10 repetitions of "Dad told stories today." The duration, path distance, average speed, and speech movement stability of the movements were calculated for each repetition. Results: The children with CP had longer durations than their TD peers. Children with CP had longer path distances and faster average speed as compared with their TD peers for both articulators. The TD group but not the CP group had longer path distances and faster average speeds for the tongue than the jaw. The CP group had reduced speech movement stability for the tongue as compared with their TD peers, but both groups had similar speech movement stability for the jaw. Conclusions: Children with CP had impaired speech motor control of the tongue and jaw as compared with their TD peers, and these speech motor control deficits were more pronounced in the tongue tip than the jaw.