Motor speech profile in relation to site of brain pathology: A developmental perspective

Abstract

Few reports exist on motor speech profiles of children with congenital or acquired brain damage, relating the speech disorder to its compromised neural substrate. This chapter examines motor speech characteristics in representative cases with: speech and orofacial dyspraxia resulting from mutation of the FOXP2 gene; dysarthria resulting from the resection of posterior fossa tumour; and dysarthria associated with hemispherectomy for treatment of intractable epilepsy. The neuropathology that is implicated in each type of motor speech disorder is considered with the aim of identifying those aspects of the motor circuitry that may have become disrupted as a result of the brain damage. The role o..