Development of a Tongue Capability Model for Quantifying Pathology-Related Motor Deficits

Motor speech disorders are difficult to evaluate clinically. Current clinical assessment tools are limited to measures of phonetic production rates and do not represent a comprehensive description of the motor capability of the affected muscle groups. Studies on upper limb impairments among stroke survivors have shown that motor free-exploration tasks provide a fuller description of individual motor deficits. To assess tongue motor function, we first developed a novel solution for intra-oral device fixation. Then we analyzed the tongue movement distributions of healthy individuals during a free exploration task in the presence of visual feedback to create a statistical model of healthy tongue capability. Finally, we utilize the healthy model to evaluate the motor deficits of individuals with motor speech disorders. Our preliminary findings are an encouraging step towards the assessment and rehabilitation of motor speech disorders.