Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, cilt.195, 2025 (SCI-Expanded)
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate speech motor control and laryngeal diadochokinesis in terms of age and sex in a typically developing, normophonic pediatric population using a computer-assisted analysis method, and to establish normative data for the assessed parameters. Methods: The sample of the study included 427 typically developing, normophonic children between the ages of 7 and 16 years. While 48.01 % (n = 205) of the participants were female, 51.99 % (n = 222) were male. The participants were divided into 3 age groups: 7–9 (male n = 87; female n = 82), 10–12 (male n = 50; female n = 47), and 13–16 (male n = 85; female n = 77). The acoustic analyses were carried out using the Motor Speech Profile (MSP) software (KayPENTAX, Lincoln Park, NJ, USA). The analysis protocols consisted of oral diadochokinetic (DDK) rate, laryngeal DDK rate, second formant (F2) transition rate, and general syllabic rate. The alternate motion rate (AMR) and sequential motion rate (SMR) tasks were used for oral DDK assessments. Laryngeal DDK was assessed using 2 tasks, abductor (/hʌ/ and /hi/) and adductor (/ʔʌ/ and /ʔi/). Results: Normative data were obtained for speech motor control and laryngeal DDK for children aged 7–16 years who were native speakers of Turkish. As age increased, oral and laryngeal DDK rates, F2 transition rates, and syllabic rates increased in both sexes. Additionally, only in the oral AMR-DDK analyses, DDK stabilization was observed to increase (DDK-jitter decreased). No statistically significant differences associated with age were observed in the DDK-jitter values in the other DDK analyses (p > 0.05). Sex-based differences were only observed in the syllabic rate analyses, and the syllabic rate values of the female participants were lower than those of the male participants in all age groups. Conclusion: The pediatric normative database presented in this study can offer reference ranges for further studies involving the analyses of changes in oral and laryngeal motor control that may arise due to various developmental or neurological problems.