Structural brain differences in school-age children with residual speech sound errors.

The purpose of the study was to identify structural brain differences in school-age children with residual speech sound errors. Voxel based morphometry was used to compare gray and white matter volumes for 23 children with speech sound errors, ages 8;6-11;11, and 54 typically speaking children matched on age, oral language, and IQ. We hypothesized that regions associated with production and perception of speech sounds would differ between groups.

Functional brain activation differences in school-age children with speech sound errors: speech and print processing.

Purpose: To examine neural response to spoken and printed language in children with speech sound errors (SSE).

Method: Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to compare processing of auditorily and visually presented words and pseudowords in 17 children with SSE, ages 8;6[years;months] through 10;10, with 17 matched controls.

Results: When processing spoken words and pseudowords, the SSE group showed less activation than typically speaking controls in left middle temporal gyrus.

Searching for Potocki-Lupski syndrome phenotype: a patient with language impairment and no autism.

Potocki-Lupski syndrome (PTLS; OMIM 610883) is a genomic syndrome that arises as a result of a duplication of 17p11.2. Although numerous cases of individuals with PTLS have been presented in the literature, its behavioral characterization is still ambiguous.

Attentional regulation in young twins with probable stuttering, high nonfluency, and typical fluency.

Purpose: Using a sample of 20,445 Dutch twins, this study examined the relationship between speech fluency and attentional regulation in children. A secondary objective was to identify etiological overlap between nonfluency and poor attention using fluency-discordant twin pairs.

Method: Three fluency groups were created at age 5 using a parent questionnaire: (a) probable stuttering (PS; N=826; 4.

Bivariate genetic analyses of stuttering and nonfluency in a large sample of 5-year-old twins.

Purpose: Behavioral genetic studies of speech fluency have focused on participants who present with clinical stuttering. Knowledge about genetic influences on the development and regulation of normal speech fluency is limited. The primary aims of this study were to identify the heritability of stuttering and high nonfluency and to assess the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the correlation between these 2 fluency phenotypes.

A thematic analysis of late recovery from stuttering.

This study used thematic analysis to gain a better understanding of the experiences of individuals who reported late recovery from stuttering. Using a semistructured interview, 6 adults who reported recovering from stuttering after the age of 10 were asked to relate their recovery stories, with particular emphasis on their perceptions of factors responsible for the recovery process. The interviews were parsed into information-rich quotations that were ultimately placed into thematic categories.

Finding susceptibility genes for developmental disorders of speech: the long and winding road.

Unlabelled: Finding susceptibility genes for complex disorders is the next major challenge facing genetics researchers. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate creative thinking about the gene-finding process for developmental speech disorders (DSDs), specifically disorders of articulation/phonology and stuttering. The paper will begin with a review of existing behavioral genetic studies of these phenotypes.