The speed of articulatory movements involved in speech production in children with dyslexia

Abstract

A group of children with dyslexia (mean ages 9 and 14 years) was studied, together with group of children without dyslexia matched for age. Participants were monolingual native speakers of the Bosnian language with transparent orthography. In total, the diagnostic tests were performed with 41 children with dyslexia and 41 nondyslexic children. The participants were asked to produce monosyllables, /pa/, /ta/, and /ka/, and the trisyllable /pataka/, as fast as possible. Analysis was undertaken in four ways: (1) time of occlusion duration for plosives (duration of stop), (2) voice onset time for plosives, (3) diadochokinetic rate--articulators rate measured by pronunciation of monosyllables and the trisyllable, and (4) time of moving articulators from one gesture to another-time of interval length (from the explosion of one plosive to the start of the explosion of another plosive). The results suggest that children with dyslexia have significant problems with the speed of articulatory movements involved in speech production.