Developmental trajectory of tongue control for speech with real-time MRI

This project aims to evaluate the developmental trajectory of dynamic tongue control during speech, relating 4D vocal tract modelling to the acoustic signal. The optimisation of real-time MRI technology to capture rapid articulatory movements enables us to accelerate understanding of how tongue control for speech is developed, mastered, and perturbed by factors such as accent or disease. Expected outcomes include a new explanatory framework for the sequence of articulatory development in English, based on kinematic rather than linguistic constructs. Expected benefits will be enriched knowledge of how control of different components of the tongue changes in accuracy and variability as the sounds of the language are mastered.