Using advanced motion capture, URI study examines impact of motor skills on language development

Despite the well-documented academic, cognitive, and social difficulties associated with persistent language disorders, predicting early-life language issues remains a significant challenge for researchers and clinicians. Using acoustic equipment and an advanced optical motion capture system to record facial movement, URI Communicative Disorders Assistant Professor Marc Maffei aims to improve outcomes for children with early language delays.

Maffei secured a grant from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation to conduct a study in his Language and Early Oromotor Skills lab on the Kingston Campus, in which he and his team will study physical movement of the lips and jaw during speech. Maffei will recruit 20 children through the URI Speech and Hearing Clinic—10 identified as late talkers and 10 with typical language development—to visit his lab. Maffei will begin with a free play session to assess participants’ spontaneous language use, followed by tests of gross motor skills like walking, jumping and balancing, and fine motor skills like stacking blocks and threading beads.

Researchers will then perform a standardized speech assessment, recording speech sounds and identifying which sounds the children can and cannot properly pronounce. They will attach reflective markers on participants’ mouth, chin, and forehead, and have them pronounce a series of simple words like “mama” and “dada” in front of the eight-camera optical motion capture system in Maffei’s lab. He will record the movement of their lips and jaw, measuring the precision, consistency, and coordination of speech movements—how wide the young participants open their mouths, for example, and whether their faces move as expected when pronouncing certain words.

“We can derive some very interesting things from those signals, like the speeds of the different movements, the coordination between two structures, and the consistency of repeated movements involved in speech,” Maffei said. “Previous research shows that those measurements develop in predictable ways, so we can use them to see if the motor system is maturing typically or not.”

Predicting whether a child is simply a late talker or they will go on to have more significant language impairment has long been a challenge for speech pathologists. Maffei’s research will add data on the relationship between motor skills and language development, and inform theoretical models of the co-development of speech, language, and motor skills for further study in Maffei’s new motion capture lab.

“There’s currently no reliable way of predicting what category an 18- or 24-month-old child who is behind on language will fall into. Gross and fine motor skills are a clue that tell us part of the story, and I’m trying to determine if speech motor skills can fill in the blanks. The research I’ve been doing suggests very heavily that there is something there,” Maffei said, noting his previous work on acoustics led him to examine movement in speech. “We already have research showing that gross and fine motor skills are correlated with how language develops. For example, being able to move around in your environment and interact with people has a known relationship with vocabulary growth. Surprisingly, not many researchers have looked at how the motor system that underlies speech production correlates with language development.”

The long-term goal of the research is to improve lifelong outcomes for late talkers and those with other language issues by understanding the behavioral variables associated with expressive language development—defined as the human ability to express thoughts, feelings and needs, most often through speaking.

“The most immediate result of this work will be establishing specific motor differences between children with and without language delays that can inform longitudinal studies of language development,” Maffei said. “The primary goal is the early identification of a persistent language disorder so we can put well-established language interventions in place earlier. And research shows, the earlier the better.”