2005 — 2006 |
Walsh, Bridget M |
F31Activity Code Description: To provide predoctoral individuals with supervised research training in specified health and health-related areas leading toward the research degree (e.g., Ph.D.). |
Language and Motor Interactions in Parkinson's Disease @ Purdue University West Lafayette
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The central aim of this project is to investigate the effects of increased linguistic demands on speech production in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Speech disturbances are common in PD; however, studies of speech production have primarily focused on perceptual characteristics, instead of on the complex articulatory movements underlying the speech disorder. Furthermore, although a decrease in speech intelligibility is evident during longer productions in individuals with PD, the few studies of speech kinematics in this population were generally based on syllable, non-word, or word-level production tasks. In order to understand how speech movements are affected by PD, it is essential to take into account the linguistic structure and goals of the utterance. Therefore, articulatory movement data from the upper lip, lower lip, and jaw will be collected from 15 individuals with PD and 15 age- and sex-matched neurologically normal adults during speaking tasks that vary in length and linguistic complexity. Measures of speech motor control, behavioral data from language assessments, and perceptual evaluations of speech intelligibility will be analyzed in order to contribute to a comprehensive profile of how communication is affected by PD. This work will have significance for understanding the neural processes related to speech production, and will also have important implications for diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to PD.
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1 |
2014 — 2016 |
Walsh, Bridget M |
R03Activity Code Description: To provide research support specifically limited in time and amount for studies in categorical program areas. Small grants provide flexibility for initiating studies which are generally for preliminary short-term projects and are non-renewable. |
Central and Peripheral Dynamics of Speech Production in Children Who Stutter
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this project is to better understand the fundamental physiological and neural mechanisms that contribute to disfluencies in children who stutter (CWS). Our research strategy combines both ground-breaking and established experimental approaches including functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS - an emerging neuroimaging technology), kinematic measures of articulation, and clinical assessments of stuttering severity. An overall goal of this project is to examine activation of specific neural regions involved in speech production during a range of speaking conditions, including natural speech, using fNIRS. Findings from nearly 20 years of functional neuroimaging research in adults who stutter have provided greater insight into the neurological underpinnings of developmental stuttering. Because there have been few studies in CWS, however, it is unclear whether differences detected in adults who stutter are present at onset or emerge later, a consequence of a lifetime of compensation and/or therapeutic strategies. An additional limitation of earlier neuroimaging studies is the use of brief, unnatural speaking tasks due to methodological constraints inherent in fMRI and PET technologies. Stuttering occurs during natural, extemporaneous, connected speech. Therefore, it is critical to assess neural activation during more ecologically valid speaking conditions that place the greatest demands on the speech motor system of the CWS. Functional NIRS can be used to achieve this aim, because it is uniquely suited to record brain hemodynamics during natural speaking conditions. Another aim of this research is to examine relationships among central correlates of speech production, peripheral motor speech dynamics, and behavioral indices of stuttering. We will address this aim with parallel kinematic and neuroimaging experiments for a range of speaking conditions in which linguistic complexity and auditory feedback are manipulated. A relatively large group of CWS will be recruited to ensure that a range of clinical severity is represented. By incorporating a theoretically-grounded hierarchy of experiments designed to elicit a continuum of fluency, we will determine if potential changes in stuttering behavior are associated with differences in neural activation and speech motor coordination in CWS. Findings from this project will provide a critical step for future work using these noninvasive methods to identify neural characteristics of young children at risk for persistence in stuttering.
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1 |
2020 — 2021 |
Walsh, Bridget M |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Developmental Trajectories to Stuttering Persistence and Recovery @ Michigan State University
Summary Stuttering or childhood onset fluency disorder, affects 5-8% of preschool-aged children. Although many children?s stuttering resolves within 12-24 months of onset, those who continue to stutter beyond age 7 are at significant risk for chronic stuttering. For children who persist, speaking often becomes a lifelong struggle. The negative consequences for academic/vocational achievement and psychosocial development suffered by many of these children are substantial and long lasting. Prior studies in preschool children who stutter (CWS) have identified demographic, behavioral, and physiological factors associated with stuttering persistence by comparing performance across groups of preschool children. Yet, we do not know how a child?s unique developmental pathway leads them to recover or persist in stuttering. This limits our ability to predict a child?s risk of developing persistent (chronic) stuttering reliably and to develop efficacious prevention and treatment strategies. This project shifts experimental focus, for the first time, to the individual child, providing a dynamic account of how neurological, behavioral, and experiential factors unfold over time and contribute to different stuttering outcomes. We achieve this through our comprehensive, longitudinal design and structural equation modeling framework, in which we map the developmental trajectories of critical factors implicated in stuttering. In our approach, we use a novel neuroimaging technique, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), that allows us to record brain activity concurrent with continuous speech production, a distinct advantage of this technique. We will assess whether neural markers derived from fNIRS recordings identified in our research with older CWS can distinguish preschool children at risk for persistence, thereby helping to establish a neural basis for stuttering persistence and recovery. We will also assess whether atypical coupling between sympathetic nervous system activity and speech output, detected in cross-sectional studies, represents a risk factor for chronic stuttering. Finally, stuttering leaves a lasting imprint on children who persist. Ample evidence shows that older children and adults are more likely to harbor negative emotions about their speech and/or develop communication anxiety. We lack a continuous picture, however, of how these issues develop in young children whose awareness of stuttering is emerging. We will examine how behavioral, emotional, and experiential factors unfold over time and explore their roles in stuttering persistence or recovery and in the development of negative communication attitudes. This project will bring new, comprehensive insights into why stuttering persists in individual children, and, in parallel, help better prioritize therapy resources, identify etiological targets for prevention and intervention, and accelerate the development of new treatments.
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