Speech Situation Checklist–Revised: Investigation With Adults Who Do Not Stutter and Treatment-Seeking Adults Who Stutter

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the Speech Situation Checklist for adults who stutter (SSC) in differentiating people who stutter (PWS) from speakers with no stutter based on self-reports of anxiety and speech disruption in communicative settings. The SSC’s psychometric properties were examined, norms were established, and suggestions for treatment were formulated. Method: The SSC was administered to 88 PWS seeking treatment and 209 speakers with no stutter between the ages of 18 and 62. The SSC consists of 2 sections investigating negative emotional reaction and speech disruption in 38 speech situations that are identical in both sections. Results: The SSC–Emotional Reaction and SSC–Speech Disruption data show that these self-report tests differentiate PWS from speakers with no stutter to a statistically significant extent and have great discriminative value. The tests have good internal reliability, content, and construct validity. Age and gender do not affect the scores of the PWS. Conclusions: The SSC–Emotional Reaction and SSC– Speech Disruption seem to be powerful measures to investigate negative emotion and speech breakdown in an array of speech situations. The item scores give direction to treatment by suggesting speech situations that need a clinician’s attention in terms of generalization and carry-over of within-clinic therapeutic gains into in vivo settings

Variance Of Central Timing Of Voiced And Voiceless Periods Among Stutterers And Nonstutterers

The finding of distinctively greater temporal variability among stutterers is consistent with the hypothesis that the cause of their speech disruption is related to the excessive variability in their speech motor system. This hypothesis, would lead to expect that the stutterers\u27 temporal variability would be reduced when they lower their speech rate, a condition known to reduce the frequency of stuttering. However, crucial for the variability hypothesis is the contention that the excessive variability deemed to be causative stems from the central timing mechanism of the speech production system. To find this component of variability, that which is due to speech rate variations and that due to peripheral mechanisms must be separated from the observed total variability in segment durations. A procedure to achieve this is outlined. The application of this procedure showed a normalization of the stutterers\u27 variability during moderate slowing of speech. © 1995

The Speech-Associated Attitude of Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter and the Differential Effect of Age

Fifty-five Flemish children, ages 6 to 13, who stuttered and 55 who did not were the subjects of a two (group) by eight (age) factorial investigation of their response to a Dutch translation of the Communication Attitude Test (C.A.T.). The main effect results confirmed previous C.A.T. findings that, as early as age 6, children who stutter exhibit significantly more in the way of a negative speech-associated attitude than their peers do. In addition, the between-group difference in attitude diverged with age. The C.A.T. scores increased for those who stuttered and decreased for the normally fluent children. These data suggest that the attitude of the two groups of children was differentially affected by their speech-related experience history. It follows from this, and the other findings of the study, that the attitude toward speech of children who stutter warrants early clinical consideration and attention