Jessica Holmes

Jessica Holmes

Listen to my Speech!

Learning to talk involves the coordination of several systems and is one of the most complex tasks young children can undertake. Our brain uses what it hears to ensure we are speaking clearly. Hearing one’s own voice gives the child’s brain important information on the relationship between the position of the articulators (e.g., tongue, lips) and the sounds coming out. As a result, this feedback is not only important in learning to talk, but also in the correction and detection of speech errors at all ages. Despite its crucial contribution to fluent speech, this relationship between the sound of our voice (auditory feedback) and the control of our articulators (speech motor control) has not been studied extensively in childhood. Our study is filling this gap to better understand how this relationship develops throughout childhood and across different populations, and what factors it might be related to.

Jessica Holmes
PhD candidate, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences - Western University

Supervisors
Dr. Janis Oram
Dr. David Purcell

Jessica Holmes (she/her) is a 4th year combined student in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Western University. She is concurrently a MClSc student in Speech-Language Pathology and a PhD candidate in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, specifically Speech and Language Sciences. Her research focuses on the relationship between auditory feedback (how we hear ourselves when we talk) and speech motor control (how our brain controls our articulators while talking) in children. By investigating this relationship and its development throughout childhood, Jessica wishes to deepen our understanding of how children learn to speak, and why this process may be more difficult for some than others. She hopes that uncovering the processes behind speech acquisition will not only advance our theoretical knowledge but also allow for improvements to be made in the identification, assessment and treatment of communication disorders.

Jessica's research is highlighted in episode 539 of GradCast, the official podcast of the Society of Graduate Students at Western University.

You can connect with Jessica via her LinkedIn.

View Jessica's work as it appears in the Inspiring Minds Digital Collection.