The process of differentially diagnosing a child who is experiencing temporary normal disfluency from one who is beginning to stutter could be made objective by the establishment of normative data on fluency development. To date, there are no standardized norms on the development of fluency in children. Current investigations have contributed greatly to expectations of certain types and amounts of disfluencies in preschool-age children. Most of the research, however, has focused on observing children at discrete age levels from 2- to 7-years-of-age. Only one longitudinal study to date has been reported. Additional longitudinal data of preschoolaged children would benefit the establishment of normative data. Observing the same children over time helps to expose the subtleties that could be missed when looking only at specific age levels. The present study sought to contribute to the investigation of normal childhood disfluency by comparing various types and amounts of disf luencies in 44- to 49-month-old-children to the results of the same group of children when they were 30- to 35-months-of-age
