Speaking to a metronome reduces kinematic variability in typical speakers and people who stutter.

Background: Several studies indicate that people who stutter show greater variability in speech movements than people who do not stutter, even when the speech produced is perceptibly fluent. Speaking to the beat of a metronome reliably increases fluency in people who stutter, regardless of the severity of stuttering.Objectives: Here, we aimed to test whether metronome-timed speech reduces articulatory variability.Method: We analysed vocal tract MRI data from 24 people who stutter and 16 controls. Participants repeated sentences with and without a metronome. Midsagittal images of the vocal tract from lips to larynx were reconstructed at 33.3 frames per second. Any utterances containing dysfluencies or non-speech movements (e.g. swallowing) were excluded. For each participant, we measured the variability of movements (coefficient of variation) from the alveolar, palatal and velar regions of the vocal tract.Results: People who stutter had more variability than control speakers when speaking without a metronome, which was then reduced to the same level as controls when speaking with the metronome. The velar region contained more variability than the alveolar and palatal regions, which were similar.Conclusions: These results demonstrate that kinematic variability during perceptibly fluent speech is increased in people who stutter compared with controls when repeating naturalistic sentences without any alteration or disruption to the speech. This extends our previous findings of greater variability in the movements of people who stutter when producing perceptibly fluent nonwords compared with controls. These results also show, that in addition to increasing fluency in people who stutter, metronome-timed speech also reduces articulatory variability to the same level as that seen in control speakers

Speaking to a metronome reduces kinematic variability in typical speakers and people who stutter.

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Juliet Semple, Nicola Aikin, Nicola Filippini, and Stuart Clare for their MRI support, Louisa Needham for her assistance with recruitment, Magdalena Saumweber for her assistance with data processing, and Sam Jones for useful feedback on the statistical analysis. We would like to thank Aivy Nguyen, Timothy Berezhnoy, and Anna Nolan for their assistance in acoustic segmentation. Lastly, but certainly not least, the authors would like to thank all the participants who took part in this study.BACKGROUND: Several studies indicate that people who stutter show greater variability in speech movements than people who do not stutter, even when the speech produced is perceptibly fluent. Speaking to the beat of a metronome reliably increases fluency in people who stutter, regardless of the severity of stuttering. OBJECTIVES: Here, we aimed to test whether metronome-timed speech reduces articulatory variability. METHOD: We analysed vocal tract MRI data from 24 people who stutter and 16 controls. Participants repeated sentences with and without a metronome. Midsagittal images of the vocal tract from lips to larynx were reconstructed at 33.3 frames per second. Any utterances containing dysfluencies or non-speech movements (e.g. swallowing) were excluded. For each participant, we measured the variability of movements (coefficient of variation) from the alveolar, palatal and velar regions of the vocal tract. RESULTS: People who stutter had more variability than control speakers when speaking without a metronome, which was then reduced to the same level as controls when speaking with the metronome. The velar region contained more variability than the alveolar and palatal regions, which were similar. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that kinematic variability during perceptibly fluent speech is increased in people who stutter compared with controls when repeating naturalistic sentences without any alteration or disruption to the speech. This extends our previous findings of greater variability in the movements of people who stutter when producing perceptibly fluent nonwords compared with controls. These results also show, that in addition to increasing fluency in people who stutter, metronome-timed speech also reduces articulatory variability to the same level as that seen in control speakers

Measuring socioemotional wealth in family-owned and -managed firms: A validation and short form of the FIBER Scale

Socioemotional wealth (SEW) is a key concept in family business research. The proposed FIBER scale as a direct and multidimensional measure of SEW is therefore a significant research achievement. We refined the scale by validating and thereby shortening it, using a sample of 216 family-owned and -managed firms with up to 500 employees in the German-speaking area. The validation reveals different degrees of validity across the five FIBER dimensions, resulting in a revised short form called the REI scale that comprises nine items that measure the core affective endowments a family may derive from controlling a firm. Based on our empirical validation, we discuss theoretical implications for the further development of a sound SEW measure

Suzuki Polycondensation: Polyarylenes à la Carte

This review draws a rather comprehensive picture of how Suzuki polycondensation was discovered in 1989 and how it was subsequently developed into the most powerful polymerization method for polyarylenes during the last 20 years. It combines insights into synthetic issues with classes of polymers prepared and touches upon aspects of this method's technological importance. Because a significant part of the developmental work was carried out in industry, the present review makes reference to an unusually large number of patents