Listening speech sounds activates motor and premotor areas in addition to temporal and parietal brain regions. These activations are somatotopically localized according to the effectors recruited in the production of particular phonemes. Previous work demonstrated that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of speech motor centers somatotopically altered speech perception, suggesting a role fo...

In early speech development, progressive gains in phonetic ability represent progress in multiple domains (e.g., sensory, perceptual, cognitive, linguistic, and neuromotor) all of which are ultimately conveyed through the speech motor system. Accordingly, the comprehensive understanding of speech development requires knowledge about age-related changes in speech motor performance and about the ...

The precise neural mechanisms underlying speech perception are still to a large extent unknown. The most accepted view is that speech perception depends on auditory-cognitive mechanisms speci®cally devoted to the analysis of speech sounds. An alternative view is that, crucial for speech perception, it is the activation of the articulatory (motor) gestures that generate these sounds. The listene...

Keven & Akins suggest that innate stereotypies like TP/R may participate in the acquisition of tongue control. This commentary examines this claim in the context of speech motor learning and biomechanics, proposing that stereotypies could provide a basis for both swallowing and speech movements, and provides biomechanical simulation results to supplement neurological evidence for similarities b...

A model is proposed that interprets a variety of connected speech processes as resulting from prosodic modulations at different tiers of functional speech motor control along the hypo-hyper dimension [10]. The general background of the model is given by the trichotomy of A-, Band C-prosodic phenomena [15] that together constitute the acoustic makeup of any speech utterance (with regard to their...

Apraxia of speech is a motor speech disorder thought to result from impaired planning or programming of articulatory movements. It can be the initial or only manifestation of a degenerative disease, termed primary progressive apraxia of speech (PPAOS). The aim of this study was to use task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess large-scale brain network pathophysiology in P...

Hearing one's own voice is important for regulating ongoing speech and for mapping speech sounds onto articulator movements. However, it is currently unknown whether attention mediates changes in the relationship between motor commands and their acoustic output, which are necessary as growth and aging inevitably cause changes to the vocal tract. In this study, participants produced vocalization...

UNLABELLED A prospective follow-up of very low birth weight infants (VLBW) with (n = 89) and without (n = 71) bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) and Term control children (n = 93) was conducted at 8 years of age. Groups were compared on measures of articulation, receptive and expressive language, verbal and performance IQ, oral motor skills and gross and fine motor skills. The BPD group demonstra...

Background: Neuroimaging studies of Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) have not revealed any systematic macrostructural abnormalities. Further, no studies have investigated connectivity of sensory-motor circuitries subserving speech and their possible changes after intervention in children with CAS. The first aim of this preliminary study was to identify possible altered neural networks in child...

The posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) in the left hemisphere is thought to form part of the putative human mirror neuron system and is assigned a key role in mapping sensory perception onto motor action. Accordingly, the pIFG is involved in motor imitation of the observed actions of others but it is not known to what extent speech repetition of auditory-presented sentences is ...