Compensatory articulatory behaviors after tongue reconstruction in production of English plosives: Establishing the range of lip movement patterns for control speakers

Head and neck cancer can have a devastating impact on speech and swallowing function. In particular, a tumor in the tongue can reduce the ability to produce articulatory gestures typical for English plosives. Previous case studies suggest that the lower lip can compensate for tongue tip gestures in speech after tongue reconstruction. The goal of this study is to establish typical lower lip movement patterns for alveolar and velar plosives for English speakers towards identifying compensatory lip movements in cancer speakers. Ten participants were recruited with no reported hearing or speech problems. A list of 40 minimal pairs beginning with the target plosives were created and embedded in carrier sentences. The participants read sentences in random order with and without babble noise in a standing posture. Lip motion was captured using a custom app on an iPhone 11 capturing the perioral surface area with the TrueDepth infrared camera. Preliminary results suggest that this app-based approach to lip tracking is a viable tool to capture typical lip movement patterns, ultimately enabling clinical research in more accessible settings. Mixed-effects linear regression analyses of the lip kinematics will be discussed.