The Early Months of Stuttering: A Developmental Study

Objective data on the development of stuttering during its first several months are sparse. Such a deficit is due to parents\u27 tendency to postpone professional consultation regarding early stuttering until later in the course of the disorder and to a lack of longitudinal studies beginning close to onset. This report presents information on a rare group of 16 preschool subjects who were evaluated within several weeks after stuttering onset and followed for 6 months using multiple measures. The findings show that often early stuttering takes on a moderate-to-severe form. Substantial changes occurred, however, during the 6 months of the study, with a strong tendency for reduction in stuttering-like disfluencies, number of head/face movements, clinician severity ratings of stuttering, and parent ratings of stuttering. Several subjects, including severe cases, exhibited complete recovery. The large changes that occur during the early stage of stuttering suggest that relatively small differences in the length of post-onset interval (stuttering history) can greatly influence all research data of early childhood stuttering. The high, as well as fast, improvement rate suggests that the precise timing of early intervention should be conscientiously evaluated in carefully controlled studies

Relation between phonologic difficulty and the occurrence of disfluencies in the early stage of stuttering

People who stutter, especially children, have often been reported to exhibit a wide range of concomitant communication problems including articulation and phonologic deficiencies. This study investigated the relation between the phonologic difficulty of words and the point at which stuttering-like disfluencies occurred in the speech of preschool children identified as having a stuttering problem (n = 24). The children were divided into subgroups according to stuttering severity and phonologic ability. A spontaneous speech sample of approximately 1,000 words was tape-recorded from each child, and perceived disfluencies were identified. The phonologic difficulty of each word on which there was a stuttering-like disfluency and of each fluent word immediately following such a disfluency was categorized. The proportion of words in each child\u27s speech sample that contained each category of phonologic difficulty was determined. The data showed that the proportion of disfluent and immediately following words in each type of phonologic difficulty closely resembled the proportion of words in the speech sample of the same type of difficulty. There were no significant differences between the subgroups of stutterers. We concluded, therefore, that the phonologic difficulty of the disfluent word, and the fluent word following it, did not contribute to fluency breakdown regardless of the childrens\u27 stuttering severity or phonologic ability

PREDICTIVE FACTORS OF PERSISTENCE AND RECOVERY: PATHWAYS OF CHILDHOOD STUTTERING

This article presents broad preliminary findings from a longitudinal study of stuttering pertaining to differentiation of developmental paths of childhood stuttering, as well as possible early prediction of High Risk, Low Risk, and No Risk for chronic stuttering. More than 100 preschool children who stutter have been closely followed for several years from near the onset of stuttering using a multiple data collection system, with 45 nonstuttering children serving as controls. Thirty-two stuttering and 32 control subjects who have progressed through several stages of the investigation were identified for the present indepth analyses. They represent four subgroups: I. Persistent Stuttering; II. Late Recovery; III. Early Recovery; IV. Control. Comparative data for the groups with special reference to differences in frequency of disfluency, acoustic features, phonologic skills, language development, nonverbal skills, and genetics are presented. The results suggest several promising predictors of recovery and chronicity

Articulation rate and its relationship to disfluency type, duration, and temperament in preschool children who stutter

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between articulation rate, frequency and duration of disfluencies of different types, and temperament in preschool children who stutter (CWS). In spontaneous speech samples from 19 children CWS (mean age = 3:9; years: months), we measured articulation rate, the frequency and duration of (a) sound prolongations; (b) soundsyllable repetitions; (c) single syllable whole word repetitions; and (d) clusters. Temperament was assessed with the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (Rothbart et al., 2001). There was a significant negative correlation between articulation rate and average duration of sound prolongations (p\u3c0.01), and between articulation rate and frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) (p\u3c0.05). No other relationships proved statistically significant. Results do not support models of stuttering development that implicate particular characteristics of temperament as proximal contributors to stuttering; however, this is likely due to the fact that current methods, including the ones used in the present study, do not allow for the identification of a functional relationship between temperament and speech production. Findings do indicate that for some CWS, relatively longer sound prolongations co-occur with relatively slower speech rate, which suggests that sound prolongations, across a range of durations, may represent a distinct type of SLD, not just in their obvious perceptual characteristics, but in their potential influence on overall speech production at multiple levels

PREDICTIVE FACTORS OF PERSISTENCE AND RECOVERY: PATHWAYS OF CHILDHOOD STUTTERING

This article presents broad preliminary findings from a longitudinal study of stuttering pertaining to differentiation of developmental paths of childhood stuttering, as well as possible early prediction of High Risk, Low Risk, and No Risk for chronic stuttering. More than 100 preschool children who stutter have been closely followed for several years from near the onset of stuttering using a multiple data collection system, with 45 nonstuttering children serving as controls. Thirty-two stuttering and 32 control subjects who have progressed through several stages of the investigation were identified for the present indepth analyses. They represent four subgroups: I. Persistent Stuttering; II. Late Recovery; III. Early Recovery; IV. Control. Comparative data for the groups with special reference to differences in frequency of disfluency, acoustic features, phonologic skills, language development, nonverbal skills, and genetics are presented. The results suggest several promising predictors of recovery and chronicity

A 10-Year Retrospective Case Study of the Relation between Four Summative Assessment Measures in a Graduate Speech-Language Pathology Program

Assessment is essential to ensure that quality levels of teaching and learning are maintained in graduate programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD). In this article, we present a ten-year retrospective case study of one CSD master’s program approach to address speech-language pathology program-level summative assessment. We evaluated the strength of the relation between three departmental summative measures (i.e., Grand Rounds [Capstone Course] final grade percentages, Written Comprehensive examinations, Oral Comprehensive examinations) and the national Praxis Examination in Speech-Language Pathology (5331). The strongest correlations were between the Grand Rounds final grade percentages, Written Comprehensive examinations, and the Praxis. The weakest correlations were between the Oral Comprehensive examinations and the other examination types. The study findings demonstrate the concurrent validity of Grand Rounds final grade percentages, Written Comprehensive examinations, and the Praxis. Capstone courses should be considered for their benefit in Praxis preparation, whereas oral comprehensive examinations may better serve as formative rather than summative assessment