Day-to-day Variability of Stuttering

Variability has long been known to be a primary feature of the disorder of stuttering (Bloodstein & Bernstein Ratner, 2008; Costello & Ingham, 1984; Yaruss, 1997a, 1997b). Many factors that affect variability have been investigated (Brown, 1937; Johnson & Brown, 1935; Quarrington, Conway, & Siegel, 1962) yet the typical range of variability experienced by speakers remains unknown. This study will examine the speech of six adult speakers in three spontaneous speaking situations and two reading tasks. The frequency, duration, and types of stuttered events that occur on the tasks will be compared within and between speakers. The focus will be on describing variability in stuttering frequency and duration within speakers and attempting to detect consistent patterns between speakers

Reaction Time Performance in Healthy Adults as an Effect of Age and Hand Preference Using the CRTT

Background: The Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT) is a standardized assessment of language processing abilities. The test requires perceptual, motor, and cognitive skills that may impact patient performance. A battery of reaction time tasks (CRTT-RT) was developed to assess these skills on a more basic, nonlinguistic level in order to assess a patient’s perceptual-motor-cognitive skills’ contribution to their CRTT language performance. Normative data on the CRTT-RT Battery do not currently exist across age and for right and left hands. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of age and hand preference on the simple and choice reaction time (RT) tasks included in the CRTT-RT Battery. Procedures: Sixty-four healthy, normal adults completed the CRTT-RT tasks and the CRTT-R-WF version of the CRTT with both their right and left hands. Participants included 32 younger adults (20-32 years; 16 male, 16 female) and 32 older adults (65-78 years; 16 male, 16 female). For this study, the CRTT-RT data were analyzed to evaluate the effects of age and hand preference on speed and accuracy of responses. Results: Statistically significant main effects were determined for both age and hand preference on all RT tasks combined. Age effects were additionally observed on individual RT tasks, where the older group performed slower (increased RT) than the younger group. Hand preference effects were observed on 4 of the 6 RT tasks, those that required motor movement control and response mapping, with the left hand performing significantly slower. A significant interaction between age and hand was observed for CRTT-RT Task 3 (Movement), where the older group demonstrated an over-additive slowing with the left hand. Accuracy of responses on the choice RT tasks demonstrated non-substantive differences between age and hand. Conclusions: Slowing in reaction time performance on the CRTT-RT Battery is evident with increased age as well as non-preferred hand use with a computer mouse. Theories of generalized slowing with age, increased task complexity, cognitive load, and automaticity are explored as potential explanations for the obtained results

Temperament, executive functioning, and anxiety in school-age children who stutter

The purpose of this study was to examine temperament dimensions, executive functioning ability, and anxiety levels in school-age children who stutter and their non-stuttering peers. Participants were 100 Portuguese children aged 7 to 12 years (M = 9.13; SD = 1.70), including 50 children who stutter and 50 children who do not stutter. Analyses, which were performed separately for younger and older participants, sought to identify correlations between key variables. Temperament was evaluated through a parent questionnaire, executive functioning was evaluated through children’s responses on a performance test, and anxiety level was assessed through a self-perception scale. On the temperament measure, comparisons between children who stutter and their non-stuttering peers revealed that older children who stutter exhibited significantly higher scores on the Anger/Frustration, Impulsivity, and Sadness subscales, and lower averages on the Attention/Focusing, Perceptual sensitivity, and Soothability/Falling Reactivity subscales. On the executive functioning task, comparisons revealed that the group of younger children who stutter exhibited significantly higher average execution times than their non-stuttering peers. There were no statistically significant differences in anxiety between children who stutter and children who do not stutter, and there were no statistically significant correlations between temperament factors and measures of executive functioning. Children who stutter experienced lower ability to orient attention and greater emotional reactivity compared with their non-stuttering peers. Significant correlations were found between executive functioning and age and among the temperament factors themselves. These results, which support the need for a multidimensional view of stuttering, were interpreted in the context of the Dual Diathesis – Stressor model. Findings indicate that temperament and executive functioning abilities may contribute to the development of stuttering.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Gaguez na criança - atualização da revisão de literatura

Introduction: Stuttering is a fluency disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted. The disorder is frequently misunderstood and to better analyze it is necessary to understand stuttering as more than a speech problem. Recent literature points out thatshould instead be viewed as a communication disorder with the potential to affect several aspects of children’s lives.  Different perspectives about stuttering can bring a more diverse analysis and move the field forward in scientific knowledge, however, it can also lead to fragmented and controversial views. Despite some lingering scientific consensus issues, there has been growing agreement among researchers that stuttering is a multifactorial disorder. Aim: To summarize and analyze previously published research considering stuttering as a dynamic disorder influenced by several factors. Materials and Methods: A comprehensive review which focuses on the development of stuttering, and the implications for the onset, manifestation, and chronicity of this disorder in school-age children who stutter. Results: Because of the ever-increasing literature in the area of stuttering, the review addresses assessment procedures and the perception of the impact of stuttering on children’s daily life. Conclusion: This comprehensive view contributes to an updated understanding of therapeutic and scientific factors to be considered in the evaluation and treatment of stuttering.Introdução: A gaguez é uma Perturbação da Fluência na qual o fluxo da fala é interrompido. Para melhor compreender esta perturbação não é possível analisá-la como um simples problema de fala. Deve ser vista como uma perturbação da comunicação com potencial para afetar vários aspetos da vida das crianças. Diferentes perspetivas sobre a gaguez podem trazer uma análise mais diversificada e contribuir para o avanço científico nesta área; no entanto, também pode levar a visões fragmentadas e controversas. Apesar de nem sempre haver unanimidade científica entre os diferentes autores, existe um consenso crescente entre os investigadores de que a gaguez é uma perturbação multifatorial. Objetivo: Resumir e analisar pesquisas publicadas anteriormente, considerando a gaguez como uma perturbação dinâmica, influenciada por vários fatores. Materiais e Métodos: Revisão da literatura que se foca no desenvolvimento da gaguez, manifestação e cronicidade em crianças, com idade escolar que gaguejam. A revisão aborda ainda os procedimentos de avaliação e a perceção do impacto da gaguez na vida diária das crianças. Conclusão: Esta visão abrangente contribui para uma melhor compreensão dos fatores terapêuticos e científicos que devem ser considerados na avaliação e intervenção da gaguez

The Impact Of Stuttering On Quality Of Life Of Children And Adolescents.

Understanding the experience of people who stutter, both in and out treatment, will lead to improved outcomes. To investigate how stuttering affects the quality of life of children and adolescents who stutter. The Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering--School-Age (OASES-S) was used to assess the impact of stuttering and the Fluency Profile Protocol was used to stuttering severity. These age groups do experience moderate negative impact as measured by the OASES-S. The results showed a tendency toward a positive correlation between severity and the impact of stuttering on quality of life. A better understanding of the impact of stuttering in these age groups provides a needed guide for the development of stuttering treatments and treatment outcomes research.22567-

Cortical dynamics of disfluency in adults who stutter

Citation: Sengupta, R., Shah, S., Loucks, T. M. J., Pelczarski, K., Scott Yaruss, J., Gore, K., & Nasir, S. M. (2017). Cortical dynamics of disfluency in adults who stutter. Physiological Reports, 5(9). doi:10.14814/phy2.13194Stuttering is a disorder of speech production whose origins have been traced to the central nervous system. One of the factors that may underlie stuttering is aberrant neural miscommunication within the speech motor network. It is thus argued that disfluency (any interruption in the forward flow of speech) in adults who stutter (AWS) could be associated with anomalous cortical dynamics. Aberrant brain activity has been demonstrated in AWS in the absence of overt disfluency, but recording neural activity during disfluency is more challenging. The paradigm adopted here took an important step that involved overt reading of long and complex speech tokens under continuous EEG recording. Anomalies in cortical dynamics preceding disfluency were assessed by subtracting out neural activity for fluent utterances from their disfluent counterparts. Differences in EEG spectral power involving alpha, beta, and gamma bands, as well as anomalies in phase-coherence involving the gamma band, were observed prior to the production of the disfluent utterances. These findings provide novel evidence for compromised cortical dynamics that directly precede disfluency in AWS. © 2017 The Authors. Physiological Reports published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Physiological Society and the American Physiological Society

Stuttering and phonological disorders in children: Examination of the covert repair hypothesis

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the Covert Repair Hypothesis (CRH; e.g., Postma & Kolk, 1993), a recent theory designed to explain the occurrence of speech disfluencies in adults who stutter, can account for selected speech characteristics of children who stutter, particularly those who also demonstrate disordered phonology. Subjects were 9 boys who stutter and exhibit normal phonology (S+NP; mean age = 61.33 mos.; SD = 10.16 mos.; range = 49 to 92 mos.) and 9 boys who stutter and exhibit disordered phonology (S+DP; mean age = 59.11 mos.; SD = 9.37 mos.; range = 45 to 74 mos.). Each child was audio/videotaped during (i) a picture naming task (PNT) designed to elicit a sufficient speech sample for a comprehensive phonological analysis, and (ii) a 30-minute free-play conversational interaction with his mother. In order to test CRH predictions, the conversational speech samples were analyzed for the occurrence of within- and between-word speech disfluencies, nonsystematic and systematic (phonological process) speech errors, and overt self-repairs. In addition, children\u27s articulatory speaking rates and response time latencies (RTLs) were measured. Results indicated that S+NP and S+DP children are generally comparable in terms of their basic stuttering, nonsystematic speech error, and self-repair behaviors, with the possible exception of a difference in the types of within-word disfluencies produced most frequently. CRH predictions regarding the co-occurrence of speech disfluencies and speech errors were supported for nonsystematic ( slip-of-the-tongue ) speech errors, but not for systematic (phonological process/rule-based) speech errors, suggesting that there are fundamental differences in the nature of children\u27s systematic and nonsystematic speech errors. CRH predictions that utterances produced with faster speaking rates or shorter RTLs are more likely to contain speech errors or speech disfluencies were not supported. In fact, utterances containing speech disfluencies or nonsystematic speech errors tended to be produced with a slower articulatory speaking rate. In addition, the present analysis revealed complex relationships between speaking rate, RTL, and utterance length, suggesting that further investigation of these variables is warranted. Although the present investigation did not appear to support several of the CRH predictions regarding children\u27s stuttering and speech errors, findings suggest several possible extensions to the CRH which can be used to account for various phenomena relating to children demonstrating both stuttering and disordered phonology, for example, children who apparently begin stuttering while receiving treatment for articulation or phonological disorders. Findings also lead to further extensions to the CRH designed to account for the occurrence of speech disfluencies based on differences in length and complexity of utterances, as well as speaking rate and pausing behaviors of children who stutter. (This research was supported in part by an NIH Research Grant (DC000523) to Syracuse University.

Understanding the Speaker\u27s Experience of Stuttering Can Improve Stuttering Therapy

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the value for speech-language pathologists of considering the overall stuttering condition-including speakers\u27 experiences during and around moments of stuttering-in treatment with individuals who stutter. We first highlight a framework for conceptualizing the entirety of the stuttering condition. We then present recent research and clinical perspectives about stuttering to support the claim that speech-language pathologists who account for individual differences in how their clients experience stuttering are better positioned to treat stuttering more effectively. Ultimately, this will yield better treatment outcomes and help clinicians achieve greater gains in quality of life for their clients who stutter