Articulating Novel Words: Children's Oromotor Skills Predict Nonword Repetition Abilities

Purpose Pronouncing a novel word for the first time requires the transformation of a newly encoded speech signal into a series of coordinated, exquisitely timed oromotor movements. Individual differences in children's ability to repeat novel nonwords are associated with vocabulary development and later literacy. Nonword repetition (NWR) is often used to test clinical populations. While phonological/auditory memory contributions to learning and pronouncing nonwords have been extensively studied, much less is known about the contribution of children's oromotor skills to this process. Method Two independent cohorts of children (7–13 years [N = 40] and 6.9–7.7 years [N = 37]) were tested on a battery of linguistic and nonlinguistic tests, including NWR and oromotor tasks. Results In both cohorts, individual differences in oromotor control were a significant contributor to NWR abilities; moreover, in an omnibus analysis including experimental and standardized tasks, oromotor control predicted the most unique v...