• The predicting effect of speech-like vocalizations on language development in young children and its explanations

    Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-02-01

    Abstract:

    Speech-like vocalizations are sounds that resemble adult speech and are the precursor for subsequent language development. Studies have shown that the frequency of speech-like vocalizations, canonical syllable ratio, consonant diversity, and communicative vocalizations in young children predict expressive language, but factors that predict receptive language development remain unclear. Additionally, findings investigating whether babble onset predicts word onset are also mixed. To a certain extent, the predictive relationship between speech-like vocalizations and language development can be explained by three mechanisms: speech-like vocalizations provide the basis for language production, speech-like vocalizations create an optimal learning state for language learning, and speech-like vocalizations promote social behavior. Future research may consider exploring the causal relationship between speech-like vocalizations and language development, moderating effects of related factors on speech-like vocalizations in predicting language development, uniquely valuable speech-like vocalizations for children with language disorders, and the dynamic interaction between speech-like vocalizations and social responses.

  • Neural Mechanism of Speech Imagery

    Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2022-09-21

    Abstract: Speech imagery not only plays an important role in the pre-processing mechanism of the brain, but it is also the latest technology in the field of brain-computer interface (BCI) research. The theoretical model of speech imagery, activation of brain regions, and neural conduction pathways all have many similarities with speech production. However, the brain activation mechanism of speech disorders, as well as imagining contents with complex semantics is different from speech production. Given the complexity of the human speech system, research on the neural mechanisms of speech imagery still faces a series of challenges. Future research can be focused on evaluation tools of speech imagery quality and neural decoding paradigm, brain control circuits, activation pathways, speech imagery mechanism of speech impaired groups, and brain neural signals of word and sentence imagination. Further exploration will help provide a basis for effectively improving the recognition rate of BCI and facilitating communication in speech disorders.

  • Potential early identification markers for children with autism spectrum disorder—Unusual vocalizations and theoretical explanations

    Subjects: Psychology >> Medical Psychology submitted time 2021-10-14

    Abstract: Early identification and early intervention of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are critical to their developmental outcomes. Vocalizations are sounds produced by children before they learn to talk. Studies suggested that unusual nonspeech-like and speech-like vocalizations are potential early identification makers for children with ASD before the age of 2 years. The theoretical explanations for unusual vocalizations mainly include the motivation orientation theories, the neuromotor orientation theories, the perceptual orientation theory, and the social feedback orientation theory. Future research may consider in (1) exploring the possibility of unusual vocalizations as unique early identification markers for children with ASD, (2) strengthening the study of crying in early screening of children with ASD, (3) constructing an automatic learning classification model based on the strongest predictive acoustic parameters, (4) analyzing the influence of intrinsic and social motivation on speech-like vocalizations in children with ASD, and (5) investigating the neural mechanisms of unusual speech-like vocalizations. These evidence may be helpful for early identification and intervention of children with ASD."