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As we speak, various processes take place in our brains. We find the word, find and organize the speech sounds and program the movements for speech. A stroke may cause impairment at any of these processes. Usually, multiple processes are affected. Existing methods to distinguish a disorder in finding and organizing speech sounds (phonological encoding) from an impairment in programming the articulation (Apraxia of Speech) are not optimal. In this thesis, it was studied whether EEG, measuring small changes in electric brain activity with electrodes that are placed on the scalp, can be used for this purpose. A protocol was developed to trace the processes of speech production, which was successfully tested in a group of younger and one of older neurologically healthy adults. In the younger and older adults, the processes were registered at the same electrodes on the scalp, but the time window and the waveform of the processes differed. In individuals with a phonological encoding disorder and those with Apraxia of Speech the disordered processes could not be identified, because the severity of the impairment in the groups varied. Their impaired processes differed from those in neurologically healthy individuals. Also, because of their disorder in the previous stage, the programming of the articulation was different in individuals with a phonological encoding disorder. The protocol can distinguish a phonological encoding disorder from Apraxia of Speech due to differences in the EEG data (relative to neurologically healthy participants) that only were observed during programming movements for speech.

Structural changes in the brain take place throughout one’s life. Changes related to cognitive decline may delay the stages of the speech production process in the aging brain. For example, semantic memory decline and poor inhibition may delay the retrieval of a concept from the mental lexicon. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a valuable method for identifying the timing of speech production stages. So far, studies using EEG mainly focused on a particular speech production stage in a particular group of subjects. Differences between subject groups and between methodologies have complicated identifying time windows of the speech production stages. For the current study, the speech production stages lemma retrieval, lexeme retrieval, phonological encoding, and phonetic encoding were tracked using a 64-channel EEG in 20 younger adults and 20 older adults. Picture-naming tasks were used to identify lemma retrieval, using semantic interference through previously named pictures from the same semantic category, and lexeme retrieval, using words with varying age of acquisition. Non-word reading was used to target phonological encoding (using non-words with a variable number of phonemes) and phonetic encoding (using non-words that differed in spoken syllable frequency). Stimulus-locked and response-locked cluster-based permutation analyses were used to identify the timing of these stages in the full time course of speech production from stimulus presentation until 100 ms before response onset in both subject groups. It was found that the timing of each speech production stage could be identified. Even though older adults showed longer response times for every task, only the timing of the lexeme retrieval stage was later for the older adults compared to the younger adults, while no such delay was found for the timing of the other stages. The results of a second cluster-based permutation analysis indicated that clusters that were observed in the timing of the stages for one

Structural changes in the brain take place throughout one’s life. Changes related to cognitive decline may delay the stages of the speech production process in the aging brain. For example, semantic memory decline and poor inhibition may delay the retrieval of a concept from the mental lexicon. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a valuable method for identifying the timing of speech production stages. So far, studies using EEG mainly focused on a particular speech production stage in a particular group of subjects. Differences between subject groups and between methodologies have complicated identifying time windows of the speech production stages. For the current study, the speech production stages lemma retrieval, lexeme retrieval, phonological encoding, and phonetic encoding were tracked using a 64-channel EEG in 20 younger adults and 20 older adults. Picture-naming tasks were used to identify lemma retrieval, using semantic interference through previously named pictures from the same semantic category, and lexeme retrieval, using words with varying age of acquisition. Non-word reading was used to target phonological encoding (using non-words with a variable number of phonemes) and phonetic encoding (using non-words that differed in spoken syllable frequency). Stimulus-locked and response-locked cluster-based permutation analyses were used to identify the timing of these stages in the full time course of speech production from stimulus presentation until 100 ms before response onset in both subject groups. It was found that the timing of each speech production stage could be identified. Even though older adults showed longer response times for every task, only the timing of the lexeme retrieval stage was later for the older adults compared to the younger adults, while no such delay was found for the timing of the other stages. The results of a second cluster-based permutation analysis indicated that clusters that were observed in the timing of the stages for one