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The Colorado Motor Speech Framework (CMSF)

The Colorado Motor Speech Framework (CMSF) is a core contribution of the lab and reflects our commitment to clinically meaningful theory.

The CMSF is a conceptual framework that organizes motor speech disorders along dimensions of:

• Speech motor planning
• Coordination across subsystems
• Motor execution

Rather than categorizing disorders solely by diagnosis, the framework supports a behaviorally grounded approach to understanding why speech sounds the way it does.

Clinicians may find the CMSF useful for:

• Teaching and supervising students
• Organizing differential diagnosis
• Interpreting mixed or atypical speech profiles
• Linking perceptual features to underlying motor mechanisms

Explore the CMSF:

• View the framework
• Download associated resources
• Learn how it is used in research and teaching

How Our 91ÃÛÌÒ¸ó Informs Clinical Practice

Our research is designed to address questions clinicians routinely face, including:

• Why do individuals with similar diagnoses sound different?
• How do disruptions in respiratory and laryngeal coordination affect speech naturalness?
• How can perceptual judgments be linked to measurable motor behaviors?
• Where do current diagnostic categories fall short?

Key areas of emphasis include:

• Speech naturalness and intelligibility
• Respiratory-laryngeal coordination
• Motor speech variability
• Measurement approaches in dysarthria and apraxia of speech

We aim to make our findings interpretable and relevant for clinical reasoning, not just statistical significance.

Assessment and Measurement

The lab studies a range of speech tasks and analytic approaches used in motor speech assessment, including:

• Perceptual evaluation of speech features
• Acoustic and kinematic measures
• Repetitive and connected speech tasks
• Subsystem coordination

Our work is not intended to replace clinical judgment, but to support and refine it by clarifying what different measures capture and how they relate to underlying motor control.

Collaboration and Dialogue

We welcome dialogue with clinicians and clinical educators who are interested in:

• Applying conceptual frameworks to practice
• Bridging research and clinical experience
• Collaborating on clinically motivated research questions

If you are interested in learning more about our work, providing feedback, or exploring collaboration opportunities, please reach out.

Contact Dr. Allison Hilger