2025/05/05 by Helen L. Long, Sydney Jensen, Katherine C. Hustad · 1 voice
Medicine · Psychology · #Infant Development and Preterm Care #Language Development and Disorders #Voice and Speech Disorders
paper · doi:10.1044/2025_jslhr-24-00340
openalex publication_date 2025/05/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
PURPOSE: The objective of this pilot study was to investigate the relationship between infant vocal characteristics and later speech motor impairment in children at risk for cerebral palsy (CP) to inform the early prediction of speech motor impairment. METHOD: Vocal complexity, volubility, and consonant inventories of 13 infants at risk of CP were examined at approximately 12 months. We examined their association with later levels of speech motor impairment as measured by the Viking Speech Scale (VSS). RESULTS: Children in our sample with greater speech motor impairment at age 4 years produced lower rates of developmentally complex vocalizations in infancy but showed no significant differences in vocal stage attainment, volubility, or consonant diversity. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are in line with trends found in prior literature examining vocal characteristics of infants at risk for speech motor involvement. These results can inform data-driven hypotheses in future studies aimed at the early prediction of speech motor impairment through the study of infant vocal production.