According to the researchers, the work highlights the need to develop more effective therapies to help ASD children better integrate audio and visual speech signals. (sciencedaily.com)
Kennedy's team affixes an amplifier atop Ramsey's head to record speech signals from his motor cortex as he imagines physically moving his mouth, tongue, and jaw to make speech sounds, called phonemes. (discovermagazine.com)
The brain's precise speech center varies from person to person, so to find Ramsey's target area — the place where an implant could discern the appropriate speech signals — Kennedy used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. (discovermagazine.com)