Speech Motor Control in Normal and Disordered Speech

Speaking is one of the most complex skills that humans perform. In our everyday communication, we transfer sentences, concepts, thoughts, and ideas. How though, is the speaker able to convert these into movements of the speech apparatus? These speech movements are the observable end-product, but what neurological, psycholinguistic, and perceptual--motor processes lie behind their production?

To fully understand speech disorders, such as stuttering, apraxia of speech, and Parkinsonian dysarthria, the disruptions in this complex interplay are highly relevant. Equally important is the question of how the infant develops from random babbling to precisely controlled production of words, syllables, and phonemes.

This volume presents state of the art research in the science of speech motor control and speech disorders. All the chapters take a fundamental, model-oriented perspective, as introduced in the first section of the volume. Further topics covered in this book are: brain imaging studies and the rapid progression in comprehending neural mechanisms; developmental studies revealing perceptual-motor continuities and discontinuities; psycholinguistic experimentation showing higher-order influences on speech motor control; and recent notions and applications to the understanding of speech disorders.

This will be an important volume for all those involved in speech research and speech pathology, including those from the disciplines of psychology, neurology, and ENT.

Ben Maassen and Herman Peters are at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Raymond Kent is at Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Pascal van Lieshout is in the Oral Dynamics Laboratory, Graduate Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto. Wouter Hulstijn is at the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, the Netherlands.