The hypothesis that speech goals are defined acoustically and maintained by auditory feedback is a central idea in speech production research. An alternative proposal is that speech production is organized in terms of control signals that subserve movements and associated vocal-tract configurations. Indeed, the capacity for intelligible speech by deaf speakers suggests that somatosensory inputs related to movement play a role in speech production-but studies that might have documented a somatosensory component have been equivocal. For example, mechanical perturbations that have altered somatosensory feedback have simultaneously altered acoustics. Hence, any adaptation observed under these conditions may have been a consequence of acoustic change. Here we show that somatosensory information on its own is fundamental to the achievement of speech movements. This demonstration involves a dissociation of somatosensory and auditory feedback during speech production. Over time, subjects correct for the effects of a complex mechanical load that alters jaw movements (and hence somatosensory feedback), but which has no measurable or perceptible effect on acoustic output. The findings indicate that the positions of speech articulators and associated somatosensory inputs constitute a goal of speech movements that is wholly separate from the sounds produced.

The global response to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about massive health, social and economic impacts. Based on the pressing need to respond to the crisis, clinical trials and epidemiological studies have been undertaken, however less attention has been paid to the contextualized experiences and meanings attributed to COVID-19 and strategies to mitigate its spread on healthcare workers, patients, and other various groups. This commentary examines the relevance of qualitative approaches in capturing deeper understandings of current lived realities of those affected by the pandemic. Two main challenges associated with the development of qualitative research in the COVID-19 context, namely “time constraints” and “physical distancing” are addressed. Reflections on how to undertake qualitative healthcare research given the evolving restrictions are provided. These considerations are important for the integration of qualitative findings into policies and practices that will shape the current response to the pandemic and beyond.

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While body functions and structure are well-addressed, other ICF elements, specifically participation, are poorly integrated into practice. The emerging focus on the environment in therapy intervention, by modifying the context rather than changing aspects of the child, is consistent with current approaches and evidence. Knowledge translation implementation initiatives are recommended to bridge identified gaps.

The idea that the brain controls movement using a neural representation of limb dynamics has been a dominant hypothesis in motor control research for well over a decade. Speech movements offer an unusual opportunity to test this proposal by means of an examination of transfer of learning between utterances that are to varying degrees matched on kinematics. If speech learning results in a generalizable dynamics representation, then, at the least, learning should transfer when similar movements are embedded in phonetically distinct utterances. We tested this idea using three different pairs of training and transfer utterances that substantially overlap kinematically. We find that, with these stimuli, speech learning is highly contextually sensitive and fails to transfer even to utterances that involve very similar movements. Speech learning appears to be extremely local, and the specificity of learning is incompatible with the idea that speech control involves a generalized dynamics representation.