When does speech planning rely on motor routines? ERP comparison of speech and non-speech from childhood to adulthood

Speech is an extensively overlearned oromotor behaviour that becomes more automatised over the years due to storage of their motor routines. To determine when this occurs in development, EEG/ERP spatiotemporal dynamics underlying speech-motor planning were investigated three groups: children, adolescents and adults. The production speech was contrasted sounded non-speech gestures use same effectors as but are not frequently trained. Non-speech codes assumed be individually planned on go, instead being stored Neural results revealed a gradual differentiation between with age: while ERPs did differ adults showed gradually increasing differences amplitudes topographies non-speech. This suggest code completely established yet 7–9-year-old children later during early adolescence.