Atypical gut microbiota composition in a mouse model of developmental stuttering.

Developmental stuttering is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by disfluent speech. It has been associated with mutations in genes involved in lysosomal enzyme trafficking. Mice with mutations in one such gene, Gnptab, exhibit atypical vocalizations analogous to stuttering in humans.

Communicative Fluency and the Experience of Stuttering: A Viewpoint.

Purpose: Despite ambiguity in meaning and usage, "fluency" has played a central role in the understanding and treatment of developmental stuttering. The appropriateness of the term in association with so-called , such as stuttering, has recently been questioned. The purpose of this article is to propose that fluency is best conceptualized as the efficiency of goal-directed action through cybernetic function.

Speech intelligibility loss due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: the effect of tongue movement reduction on vowel and consonant acoustic features.

The purpose of this study was to identify aspects of impaired tongue motor performance that limit the ability to produce distinct speech sounds and contribute to reduced speech intelligibility in individuals with dysarthria secondary to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We analyzed simultaneously recorded tongue kinematic and acoustic data from 22 subjects during three target words (, and ). The subjects included 11 participants with ALS and 11 healthy controls from the X-ray microbeam dysarthria database (Westbury, 1994).

Emotion processing in children who do and do not stutter: An ERP study of electrocortical reactivity and regulation to peer facial expressions.

Purpose: Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the neural correlates of emotion processing in 5- to 8-year-old children who do and do not stutter.

Methods: Participants were presented with an audio contextual cue followed by images of threatening (angry/fearful) and neutral facial expressions from similarly aged peers. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition).

Modulation of Intermuscular Beta Coherence in Different Rhythmic Mandibular Behaviors.

Introduction: Jaw movement during chewing and speech is facilitated by neural activation patterns for opening and closing movements of the mandible. This study investigated anatomic- and task-dependent differences in intermuscular coherence (IMC) and their association with the parameters of jaw muscle activity using surface electromyography (sEMG).

Methods: We recorded sEMG activation from bilateral and ipsilateral jaw-closing muscle pairs during non-nutritive and nutritive chewing, and during a syllable repetition task.

Emotional reactivity and regulation in 5- to 8-year-old children: An ERP study of own-age face processing.

The school-age years is a period of increasing social interaction with peers and development of emotion regulation in facilitating that interaction. This study was an investigation of the neural correlates of emotional reactivity and reappraisal in typically developing school-age children elicited by threatening facial expressions of same-aged peers. This experimental paradigm is novel in eliciting event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children.

Physiological Correlates of Fluent and Stuttered Speech Production in Preschool Children Who Stutter.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to compare physiological indices of sympathetic nervous system arousal recorded during fluent and stuttered utterances in a preschool children who stutter (CWS). Method Twenty-two 4- to 5-year-old CWS participated in the experiment. We recorded children's skin conductance response amplitude and frequency, blood pulse volume amplitude, and pulse rate as they completed a picture description task.

Retrieval-Based Word Learning in Young Typically Developing Children and Children With Development Language Disorder II: A Comparison of Retrieval Schedules.

Purpose Retrieval practice has been found to be a powerful strategy to enhance long-term retention of new information; however, the utility of retrieval practice when teaching young children new words is largely unknown, and even less is known for young children with language impairments. The current study examined the effect of 2 different retrieval schedules on word learning at both the behavioral and neural levels. Method Participants included 16 typically developing children ( M = 61.

What Are Predictors for Persistence in Childhood Stuttering?

Over the past 10 years, we (the Purdue Stuttering Project) have implemented longitudinal studies to examine factors related to persistence and recovery in early childhood stuttering. Stuttering develops essentially as an impairment in speech sensorimotor processes that is strongly influenced by dynamic interactions among motor, language, and emotional domains. Our work has assessed physiological, behavioral, and clinical features of stuttering within the motor, linguistic, and emotional domains.

The Effects of Syntactic Complexity and Sentence Length on the Speech Motor Control of School-Age Children Who Stutter.

Purpose: Early childhood stuttering is associated with atypical speech motor development. Compared with children who do not stutter (CWNS), the speech motor systems of school-age children who stutter (CWS) may also be particularly susceptible to breakdown under increased processing demands. The effects of increased syntactic complexity and sentence length on articulatory coordination were investigated.

An Initial Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Word Processing in Preschoolers With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose: Previous behavioral studies have found deficits in lexical-semantic abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI), including reduced depth and breadth of word knowledge. This study explored the neural correlates of early emerging familiar word processing in preschoolers with SLI and typical development.

Method: Fifteen preschoolers with typical development and 15 preschoolers with SLI were presented with pictures followed after a brief delay by an auditory label that did or did not match.

Neural Indices of Semantic Processing in Early Childhood Distinguish Eventual Stuttering Persistence and Recovery.

Purpose: Maturation of neural processes for language may lag in some children who stutter (CWS), and event-related potentials (ERPs) distinguish CWS who have recovered from those who have persisted. The current study explores whether ERPs indexing semantic processing may distinguish children who will eventually persist in stuttering (CWS-ePersisted) from those who will recover from stuttering (CWS-eRecovered).

Method: Fifty-six 5-year-old children with normal receptive language listened to naturally spoken sentences in a story context.

A Lag in Speech Motor Coordination During Sentence Production Is Associated With Stuttering Persistence in Young Children.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if indices of speech motor coordination during the production of sentences varying in sentence length and syntactic complexity were associated with stuttering persistence versus recovery in 5- to 7-year-old children.

Methods: We compared children with persistent stuttering (CWS-Per) with children who had recovered (CWS-Rec), and children who do not stutter (CWNS). A kinematic measure of articulatory coordination, lip aperture variability (LAVar), and overall movement duration were computed for perceptually fluent sentence productions varying in length and syntactic complexity.

Nonword repetition and phoneme elision in adults who do and do not stutter: Vocal versus nonvocal performance differences.

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to enhance our understanding of phonological working memory in adults who stutter through the comparison of nonvocal versus vocal nonword repetition and phoneme elision task performance differences.

Method: For the vocal nonword repetition condition, participants repeated sets of 4- and 7-syllable nonwords (n=12 per set). For the nonvocal nonword repetition condition, participants silently identified each target nonword from a subsequent set of three nonwords.

Neurodevelopment for syntactic processing distinguishes childhood stuttering recovery versus persistence.

Background: Characterized by the presence of involuntary speech disfluencies, developmental stuttering is a neurodevelopmental disorder of atypical speech-motor coordination. Although the etiology of stuttering is multifactorial, language development during early childhood may influence both the onset of the disorder and the likelihood of recovery. The purpose of this study was to determine whether differences in neural indices mediating language processing are associated with persistence or recovery in school-age children who stutter.