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Relative Kinematics Of The Rib Cage And Abdomen During Speech And Nonspeech Behaviors Of 15-Month-Old Children, Christopher A. Moore, Tammy J. Caulfield, Jordan R. Green

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Speech motor control emerges in the neurophysiologic context of widely distributed, powerful coordinative mechanisms, including those mediating respiratory function. It is unknown, however, whether developing children are able to exploit the capabilities of neural circuits controlling homeostasis for the production of speech and voice. Speech and rest breathing were investigated in eleven 15-month-old children using inductance plethysmography (Respitrace). Rib cage and abdominal kinematics were studied using a time-varying correlational index of thoracoabdominal coupling (i.e., reflecting the synchrony of movement of the rib cage and abdomen) as well as simple classification of the moment-to-moment kinematic relationship of these two functional components …