# Neural Mechanisms of Speech Production in Intervention for Residual Speech Sound Disorders

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI · 2020 · $42,928

## Abstract

Project Summary
While the vast majority of children correct speech production errors by age 8, a select group of children show
persistent misarticulation beyond this age, despite attempts at traditional speech therapy. This condition is
termed variously as “resistant” or “residual” speech sound disorder (RSSD), and typically affects production of
articulatorily complex sounds such as “r” (/r/). Children with RSSD may experience long-term negative
consequences in academic, literacy, and social-emotional domains. In order to effectively implement
intervention strategies specifically targeted to children with RSSD, a more thorough understanding of the
neural underpinning of these differences in speech processing and production is needed.
 Recently, investigators have reported that children with RSSD significantly improve their articulation
errors when additional intervention tools, such as ultrasound biofeedback, are implemented in their therapy
program. We propose to retrospectively investigate tongue movement trajectories and neural activation
patterns underlying speech production in typical children vs. children with residual speech sound disorder
(RSSD) before and after an ultrasound biofeedback speech therapy program. In this proposal, our long-term
goal is to elucidate the interaction of the phonological and speech motor systems in RSSD children in relation
to therapy outcomes. Based on prior findings, we predict that: (1) children with RSSD will exhibit greater
activation than controls in the phonological and speech motor networks during the SRT during an initial
assessment; (2) activation patterns for speech produced under fMRI will reflect performance accuracy on the
non-word repetition task, and (3) children who show more success in therapy will show increased tongue
movement and more normalized neural activation during speech production. We plan to objectively test our
hypotheses by analyzing phonological and speech motor network activation patterns of children with RSSD
pre-and post-treatment, in comparison to normally speaking children. We will also investigate the relationship
between tongue movement, neural activation patterns, and therapy outcomes.
 The outcomes of this F31 project will provide further knowledge about the interaction between
phonological and motor networks for speech production in children who fail to acquire all the sounds of their
language. The training for this Fellowship will be conducted at the University of Cincinnati and the Imaging
Research Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The proposed plan will provide
opportunities to work closely with experienced investigators to investigate the neural mechanisms for speech
and the use of fMRI as a tool to study these mechanisms in a more detailed, thorough manner. These are skills
that I will be able to apply to future treatment projects in my career.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9932794
- **Project number:** 5F31DC017654-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
- **Principal Investigator:** Caroline Spencer
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $42,928
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-05-15 → 2021-05-14

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9932794

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9932794, Neural Mechanisms of Speech Production in Intervention for Residual Speech Sound Disorders (5F31DC017654-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9932794. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*