The Rate of Expanded Inner Speech During Spontaneous Sentence Productions.

The rate of expanded inner speech and speech aloud was compared in 20 typical adults (3 males, 17 females; M age = 24 years, SD = 4). Participants generated and timed spontaneous sentences with both expanded inner speech and speech aloud following the instruction to say "the first thing that comes to mind." The rate of expanded inner speech was slightly, but significantly, faster than the rate of speech aloud.

Speech aeromechanics and the dysarthrias: implications for children with traumatic brain injury.

Background: In addition to cognitive, linguistic, neurobehavioral, and physical challenges, children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury can have a dysarthria that compromises intelligibility and speaking effort.

Objective: The focus of this article is on an aeromechanical approach to understanding, evaluating, and treating the moderate-severe dysarthrias in these children.

Vowel-related differences in laryngeal articulatory and phonatory function.

The purpose of this investigation was to study the interaction between the supralaryngeal and laryngeal components of the speech mechanism by examining vowel-related effects for a variety of vocal fold articulatory and phonatory measures. Secondary issues were to determine if vowel-related differences were influenced by the nature of the speaking task or gender. Between-vowel differences in estimated subglottal air pressure, peak oral air flow, mean phonatory air flow, air flow near the termination of the vowel, electroglottograph cycle width (EGGW), fundamental frequency, and voice onset time were examined for men and women during syllable repetitions and sentence productions.

Developmental patterns of laryngeal and respiratory function for speech production.

Estimates of subglottal air pressure, laryngeal airflow, and laryngeal airway resistance from syllable repetitions of children and adults were used in describing developmental changes in these variables and in hypothesizing corresponding changes in respiratory function. A trend was found for pressure and resistance to decrease with increases in flow from preschool age through adulthood. These patterns could be explained by the smaller size of laryngeal airway structures and increased expiratory muscle forces during speech in the younger subjects.