Copyright: Marisa Howenstine, Unsplash
The VOC2SPEAK project, an integrative-interactive approach to speech development, co-directed by Susanne Fuchs, has been selected among 16 winning projects of the 18th edition of the Franco-German call for proposals in Social Sciences and Humanities (FRAL), launched by the Agence nationale de la recherche and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Susanne Fuchs, current Language, communication and the brain – ILCB/Iméra chairholder at Iméra (Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) of Aix Marseille Université) is the German principal investigator (PI) for the VOC2SPEAK project. The French PI is Aude Noiray from the Laboratoire de Psychologie et de Neurocognition of the Université Grenoble Alpes.
Highlighting the early development of speech-motor coordination
Together with their collaborators, they aim to illuminate the early development of speech-motor coordination in children who have not yet learned to speak words and its interactions with attention, lexical and phonological development from longitudinal and cross-sectional perspectives. For this, the team will focus on infants growing up in a French- or German-speaking environment.
The findings drawn from this project should substantiate an integrative-interactive approach to speech development. While breathing is important for speech, it is a missing piece in most theories of language acquisition. Looking at its development with the voice will be an important piece in the developmental puzzle of typical development that can further inform education and clinical practices.
Pivotal collaborations at Iméra led to this project
Collaborations on the development of breathing and vocalisation set up by Susanne whilst working at Iméra and the Institute of Language, Communication and the Brain (ILCB), with Marianne Jover at the Psychologie de la Connaissance, du Langage et de l’émotion (PsyCLé) and Caterina Petron at the Laboratoire Parole et Langage (amU/CNRS), proved pivotal in setting up this novel project. Their collaboration will continue over the next few years with VOC2SPEAK.
