Sensorimotor Control of Speech and Children’s Reading Ability

Abstract

Studies of the role of phonological representations in learning to read have almost exclusively focused on speech perception. In the current study, we examined links between sensorimotor control of speech, reading, and reading-related abilities. We studied two languages, English and Dutch, which vary in the regularity of their spelling-to-sound mappings. There were 236 American and Dutch children, 4 to 8 years old, who performed an altered auditory feedback task in which the first formant of the /ɛ/ vowel was altered. A stronger response to altered feedback for literate relative to preliterate children was observed, and this was particularly the case for the Dutch children. Moreover, the magnitude of the responses was related to precursors of reading in preliterate children and to reading skill in literate children. We propose that these findings could be related to changes in children's speech production skills that facilitate the integration of orthographic and phonemic information.

Pediatric Responses to Fundamental and Formant Frequency Altered Auditory Feedback: A Scoping Review

“… MacDonald et al (2012) found that variability decreased with age. Similarly, van den Bunt et al (2018a) found literate children who read more non-words per minute showed less variation in vowel production. Coughler et al (2021) found increased variability negatively correlated with the amount of compensation in TD children, whereas Ohashi and Ostry (2021) did not find variability correlated with the amount of compensation in children or adults.…”

“…In terms of magnitude and direction of manipulations, eight studies manipulated F1 and F2 values of vowels, and five studies manipulated F1 only. F1 was manipulated in various ways, including: increased by 25% ( Shiller and Rochon, 2014 ; van den Bunt et al, 2018a ), 175 Hz ( Shiller et al, 2010b ), or 340 Hz, or decreased by 230 Hz ( Coughler et al, 2021 ), or manipulated individually so the maximum perturbation represented a change from/ε/to/ae/ ( Ohashi and Ostry, 2021 ). One study manipulated the frequency centroid of fricatives (decreased by 3 semitones; Shiller et al, 2010a ).…”

“…Six studies explored variability of baseline vocal productions related to articulatory control ( Shiller et al, 2010a ; MacDonald et al, 2012 ; van den Bunt et al, 2018a ; van Brenk and Terband, 2020 ; Coughler et al, 2021 ; Ohashi and Ostry, 2021 ). Generally, children showed greater variability compared to adults ( Shiller et al, 2010a ; MacDonald et al, 2012 ; van Brenk and Terband, 2020 ; Ohashi and Ostry, 2021 ).…”

“…Phonological awareness measures were collected in three studies ( van den Bunt et al, 2018a , b ; Caudrelier et al, 2019 ). Reading measures were additionally collected in two of these studies ( van den Bunt et al, 2018a , b ).…”

“…Phonological awareness measures were collected in three studies ( van den Bunt et al, 2018a , b ; Caudrelier et al, 2019 ). Reading measures were additionally collected in two of these studies ( van den Bunt et al, 2018a , b ). Better rapid automatized naming was found to correlate with better compensation ( van den Bunt et al, 2018a ), as well as correlated with weaker deviation from the baseline during the ramp-up phase and stronger de-adaptation during the ramp-down phase ( van den Bunt et al, 2018b ).…”