Speech-associated labiomandibular movement in Mandarin-speaking children with quadriplegic cerebral palsy: A kinematic study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the speech-associated labiomandibular movement during articulation production in Mandarin-speaking children with spastic quadriplegic (SQ) cerebral palsy (CP). Twelve children with SQ CP (aged 7–11 years) and 12 age-matched healthy children as controls were enrolled for the study. All children underwent analysis of percentage of consonants correct (PCC) and kinematic analysis of speech tasks using the Vicon Motion 370 system. Kinematic parameters included utterance duration, displacement and velocity of the lip and jaw, coefficient of variation (CV) of lip utterance duration, and spatial and temporal coupling of labiomandibular movement of speech produced in mono-syllable (MS) and poly-syllable (PS) tasks. Children with CP showed lower temporal coupling (MS, p = 0.015; PS, p = 0.007), but not spatial coupling, of labiomandibular movement than healthy children. Children with CP had greater CVs (MS, p = 0.003; PS, p = 0.010) and the peak opening displacement and velocity of lower lip and jaw (p < 0.05) and lower PCC (p < 0.001) than healthy children. Children with SQ CP displayed labiomandibular coupling movement impairment, especially in the aspect of temporal coupling. These children also had high temporal oromotor variability and needed to make more effort to coordinate the labiomandibular movement for speech production.

► Children with spastic quadriplegic (SQ) cerebral palsy (CP) displayed labiomandibular coupling movement impairment.
► They had high temporal oromotor variability and needed to make more effort to coordinate the labiomandibular movement for speech production.
► Research offered an alternative to understanding the underlying labiomandibular control for speech production in SQ CP.