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Refinement of Speech Breathing in Healthy 4- to 6-Year-Old Children

Contact author: Carol A. Boliek, who is now with the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, College of Rehabilitation Medicine, 3-18 Corbett Hall, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G4, Canada. E-mail: carol.boliek{at}ualberta.ca.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to offer a better understanding of the development of neuromotor control for speech breathing and provide a normative data set that can serve as a useful standard for clinical evaluation and management of young children with speech disorders involving the breathing subsystem.

Method: Speech breathing was studied in 60 healthy children, including 10 boys and 10 girls, each at ages 4, 5, and 6 years. A variable inductance plethysmograph was used to obtain volume changes of the rib cage, abdomen, and lung as well as temporal features of the breathing cycle.

Results: Results indicated that breathing behavior was influenced by height and age but not gender. Some speech breathing behaviors were found to be highly variable, whereas others were more systematic.

Conclusions: The data from this investigation demonstrate that the refinement of the speech breathing mechanism is gradual and presumably takes place from approximately 3–10 years of age. The rate of change associated with speech breathing parallels that observed in other subsystems of speech production.

KEY WORDS: speech, breathing, development, children

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