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Listener perceptions of stuttering across two presentation modes: a quantitative and qualitative approach.

UNLABELLED: The purpose of this study was to compare participants' quantitative and qualitative judgments of various forms and frequencies of stuttering, during either audiovisual or audio-only presentation modes. A total of 64 participants voluntarily agreed to participate in the study. Each participant was randomly assigned and exposed to only one of the four conditions of varying stuttering severity levels. The assigned speech sample was presented to the participant in either the audiovisual or audio-only mode. After watching or listening to the sample, participants completed a six-item Likert scale and were asked four open-ended questions. Comments made by listeners were developed into positive and negative comments as well as sorted into five theme clusters. The data analyses revealed a number of non-significant differences across mean Likert scale ratings for the six statements and for the number of positive and negative comments between the two presentation modes. However, the results provided partial support for the notion that as the frequency of stuttering increases, listeners tend to make increasingly more negative comments about the speaker. Additionally, there were no clear differences in comments across the five theme clusters between the two presentation modes. The findings suggest that the type of presentation mode does not appear to affect listeners' perceptions of stuttering to the same extent that stuttering severity does. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to: (1) describe how listeners perceive and react to various frequencies of stuttering; (2) explain how audiovisual versus audio-only samples impact listener perceptions of stuttering and (3) provide examples of the ways in which qualitative data can enhance the understanding of how listeners react to various levels of stuttering.

Adult↗

A qualitative study of how African American men who stutter attribute meaning to identity and life choices.

UNLABELLED: To date, few studies have explored the life experience of people who stutter. In addition, few qualitative studies have been conducted with people who stutter of historically disadvantaged race-ethnic groups. This study was designed to explore how African American men who stutter view communication, identity and life choices. A qualitative approach was used that focused on the life experiences of African American men who stutter. Six men who identified themselves as both African American and people who stutter participated in this study. The primary investigator conducted an initial 60 to 90 minute semistructured, videotaped interview with each participant. Transcriptions were made of these sessions, and analyzed for major and minor themes. Each participant returned approximately a week later to review the data analysis. Results indicated that the interaction of communication, ethnicity, and culture affected how the participants perceived themselves, their stuttering, and their life choices. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to: (1) explain the importance of culture in the life experiences of people who stutter, (2) discuss how qualitative methodology can be clinically useful when working with people who stutter, and (3) describe the major themes associated with the six participants in this study.

Adult↗

Differences in bimanual coordination associated with stuttering.

The motor coordination of adults who stutter was examined in the performance of a bimanual movement task. Fifteen subjects who stutter and 15 matched subjects who do not stutter performed three trials of a bimanual finger movement task. Subjects were required to produce a flexion and extension movement of the metacarpophalangeal joint of each index finger in rhythm to a metronome. The rate of movement increased during the 70 s trial. Stutterers could maintain movements at the prescribed rate as well as nonstutterers; however, stutterers moved with less amplitude and peak velocity. In addition, dynamical analysis revealed that subjects who stutter exhibited greater relative phase variability than subjects who do not stutter. These results shed new light on the mixed results of earlier studies on nonspeech motor performance of individuals who stutter and suggest that there are strategic differences as well as coordination differences that should be observable across a variety on motor tasks requiring coordination of multiple effectors.

Adult↗

Stuttering and social anxiety.

UNLABELLED: The aim of the present study was to investigate the presence of social anxiety in adults who stutter. This was done by administering the Inventory of Interpersonal Situations (IIS) (Van Dam-Baggen & Kraaimaat, 1999), a social anxiety inventory, to a group of 89 people who stuttered and 131 people who did not stutter. Two components of social anxiety were measured by the ISS, the extent to which emotional tension or discomfort is perceived in social situations and the frequency with which social responses are executed. The people who stuttered displayed significantly higher levels of emotional tension or discomfort in social situations. They also reported a significantly lower frequency of social responses compared to their nonstuttering peers. In addition, about 50% of the scores of the people who stuttered fell within the range of a group of highly socially anxious psychiatric patients. The results of the study suggest that the measurement of social anxiety is an important element in the assessment of adults who stutter. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to describe (1) the IIS as an assessment procedure for evaluating social anxiety, (2) the level of discomfort expressed by adult stutterers in social situations, and (3) the effect of social anxiety on stutterers' responsiveness in social situations.

Adolescent↗

A preliminary study of self-esteem, stigma, and disclosure in adolescents who stutter.

UNLABELLED: This study examined the self-esteem, perceived stigma, and disclosure practices of 48 adolescents who stutter divided into two age cohorts: younger (13, 14, and 15 years) and older (16, 17, and 18 years) adolescents. Results revealed that 41 (85%) of the participants scored within 1 S.D. from the mean on a standardized measure of self-esteem, indicative of positive self-esteem. Results also showed that stuttering did not present a stigmatizing condition for the majority (65%) of adolescents who stutter. However, 60% of participants indicated that they "rarely" or "never" discussed their stuttering. The younger adolescents perceived stuttering as a more negative and stigmatizing condition than older adolescents. Implications for understanding stuttering in adolescents are discussed. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: Readers will learn about and understand (a) the role of stigma, disclosure, and self-esteem in stuttering; (b) the methods used to evaluate stigma, disclosure, and self-esteem in adolescents; and (c) the similarities between adolescents who stutter and normative data on self-esteem and stigma scales.

Adolescent↗

Disconnection of speech-relevant brain areas in persistent developmental stuttering.

BACKGROUND: The neuronal basis of persistent developmental stuttering is unknown. The disorder could be related to a reduced left hemisphere dominance, which functional neuroimaging data suggest might lead to right hemispheric motor and premotor overactivation. Alternatively, the core deficit underlying stuttering might be located in the speech-dominant left hemisphere. Furthermore, magnetoencephalography study results show profound timing disturbances between areas involved in language preparation and execution in the left hemisphere, suggesting that persistent developmental stuttering might be related to impaired neuronal communication, possibly caused by a disruption of white matter fibre tracts. We aimed to establish whether disconnection between speech-related cortical areas was the structural basis of persistent developmental stuttering. METHODS: We analysed the speech of 15 people with persistent developmental stuttering and 15 closely matched controls for the percentage of syllables stuttered. We used diffusion tensor imaging to assess participants' brain tissue structure, and used and two-sample t test to compare diffusion characteristics between groups. FINDINGS: Diffusion characteristics of the group with persistent developmental stuttering and controls differed significantly immediately below the laryngeal and tongue representation in the left sensorimotor cortex (mean difference in fractional anisotropy 0.04 [95% CI 0.03-0.05]). INTERPRETATION: Our findings show that persistent developmental stuttering results from disturbed timing of activation in speech-relevant brain areas, and suggest that right hemisphere overactivation merely reflects a compensatory mechanism, analogous to right hemisphere activation in aphasia.

Adult↗

Time estimation by adults who stutter.

In view of the fact that stuttering involves time pressure in communicative contexts, the aim of this investigation was to study the effect of stuttering on time estimation. Two matching groups of 47 adults each, one consisting of stutterers and the other of fluent speakers, estimated the duration of four verbal tasks-two that involved speaking and two that did not. Two methods of time estimation were used: production and reproduction. In production, participants were required to perform a task, terminating it when they felt that the specified interval had elapsed. In reproduction, participants were asked to estimate the duration of a task immediately after being stopped by the experimenter. The results reveal that the differences in time estimation between adults who stutter and fluent speakers were task dependent, with the stutterers estimating time less accurately on oral verbal tasks. The conversation task in particular highlighted the inaccuracy of their time estimation. Furthermore, severe stutterers estimated time less accurately than mild stutterers. The greatest inaccuracy was displayed by severe stutterers when estimating the time of an oral task by the production method. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive models based on attention to time, method measurement, and mental workload. Clinical implications are also suggested.

Adolescent↗

Phonological progress during the first 2 years of stuttering.

This report is the third in a series on phonological impairment in children who stutter, comparing its extent in those whose stuttering will be persistent with those in whom that disorder will disappear spontaneously. The first (E. P. Paden & E. Yairi, 1996) compared small groups of these children with normally fluent children of the same ages and sex. The second (E. P. Paden, E. Yairi, & N. G. Ambrose, 1999) compared the phonological abilities evidenced soon after onset of stuttering for 84 young children. In that study, the mean level of phonological skills of the 22 participants whose stuttering eventually persisted for at least 4 years was found to be significantly poorer than that of 62 others whose stuttering would disappear without fluency intervention before that time. In the present study, recorded performances of the same 84 children, made 1 and 2 years later, were similarly evaluated to determine how their phonological development progressed after the initial visit. Results of assessment at the 1-year visit showed that the mean difference between the two groups of children was no longer significant. The children whose stuttering would persist had improved more phonologically than had those who would recover from stuttering. At the 2-year visit, the mean percentage of phonological error for the two groups was identical. Furthermore, at this assessment, only 3 of the children in the Persistent group and 11 of those in the Recovered group had not essentially mastered all of the 10 basic patterns of phonology that were the focus of our evaluation. The findings concerning the longitudinal covariance of stuttering and phonological skills provide information that should be considered in any attempt to explain the relation between the two.

Child↗

Laterality differences in child stutterers: heterogeneity, severity levels, and statistical treatments.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between stuttering severity and hemispheric dominance, as measured by a dichotic listening task. Subjects were 76 stutterers and 76 nonstutterers who were asked to respond to a series of dichotically presented synthetic syllables. Results revealed (a) a right ear preference for both stuttering and nonstuttering subjects; (b) right ear, no ear, and left ear preference subgroups among the stutterers; (c) differences in dichotic ear preferences for the 7- to 12-year-old stuttering and nonstuttering subjects; and (d) a relationship between stuttering severity and hemispheric dominance depending on the manner in which the data were analyzed. The discussion considers the earlier studies in the literature and reconsiders the idea of subgroups within the stuttering population. Also discussed is the use of certain statistical treatments and the need to determine the relationship between hemispheric dominance in stutterers and other variables.

Adolescent↗

Clinical studies in psychogenic stuttering of adult onset.

Twelve patients (6 men and 6 women), ages 21-79 years, who, as far as it could be determined from their case histories, began to stutter for the first time in adulthood were classified by examining physicians and speech-language pathologists as having psychogenic stuttering. The case histories of these patients were examined to determine the details of their speech and allied complaints, the course and duration of stuttering, and if any psychologically stressful events surrounded the onset and development of the disorder. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) data on 10 of the 12 patients were analyzed independently. The main findings were (a) stuttering was the chief complaint of 11 patients; (b) all 12 patients had additional neurologic-like complaints that turned out to be nonorganic; (c) duration of stuttering from onset to examination ranged from 4 hr to 1.5 years; (d) the stuttering of most patients was variable in severity and returned to normal either spontaneously or as a result of speech therapy or psychotherapy; (e) psychologic stress was associated with the onset in 10 patients: the stress was chronic in 4 patients and acute in 6; (f) MMPI profiles of 9 of 10 patients were abnormal, with four profiles reflective of a conversion reaction; (g) differentiating neurologic from psychogenic stuttering and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration were essential in all 12 cases; and (h) speech therapy and psychotherapy are justified when psychogenic stuttering is diagnosed.

Adult↗

Punishment and negative reinforcement of stuttering using electric shock.

Five adult male stutterers were subjected to electric shock under three conditions. After stuttering frequency was stable in base rate, three subjects were (1) presented electric shock continuously, but the shock was terminated for five seconds contingent on each stuttering (escape); (2) not presented electric shock continuously, but were given a burst of shock contingent on each stuttering (punish); and (3) allowed to choose the shock condition they preferred. Two other subjects followed the same procedure, except that the order of the escape and punish conditions was reversed. The five subjects behaved differently in the various experimental conditions. For three subjects, the percentage of words stuttered changed very little in the escape condition, whereas two subjects' stuttering increased in escape. In the punish condition, the percentage of words stuttered changed very little for one subject, increased for two subjects and decreased for two subjects. Little change in stuttering behavior occurred in the preferred choice condition.

Adult↗

Effects of noise and increased vocal intensity on stuttering.

The present study was designed to assess the effects of increased vocal level on stuttering in the presence and absence of noise, and to assess the effects of noise on stuttering with and without a concomitant increase in vocal level. Accordingly, eight adult stutterers spoke in quiet with normal vocal level, in quiet with increased vocal level, in noise with normal level, and in noise with increased level. All subjects reduced stuttering in noise compared with quiet conditions. However, there was no difference in stuttering when subjects spoke with normal compared with increased vocal level. In the present study, reductions in stuttering under noise could not be explained by increases in vocal level. It appears, instead, that reductions in stuttering were related to a decrease in auditory feedback. The condition which resulted in the largest decrease in auditory feedback, speaking in noise with a normal level, also resulted in the largest decrease in stuttering.

Adult↗

Speech clinicians' attribution of personality traits as a function of stuttering severity.

Thirty-six speech-language pathologists participated in a study to evaluate clinicians' preconceptions of persons who stutter. Each rated a designated construct (the normally fluent individual, the mild stutterer, the moderate stutterer, the severe stutterer) using a personality trait scale. Results indicated that clinicians stereotypically assign negative personality traits to all levels of stuttering severity relative to normal. Their ratings further demonstrated that stutterers are generally considered to be a homogenous group. Differentiation amongst stutterers was made only between the polar ends of the stuttering severity continuum (that is, mild vs. severe). Clinicians' sterotypical trait assignment was not related to their professional experience. Results are discussed with reference to their clinical implications.

Humans↗

An analysis of individual differences in words stuttered.

Six stutterers (two adults and four children between 12 and 14 years old) read 33 or more passages of prose of approximately 200 words, in sessions of 16 or 17 passages. Words were classified by initial phoneme, grammatical class, length, and position in sentence, and proportions of stutters were examined as a function of these variables. The extensive data allowed a detailed analysis of individual differences, with the following results. Five subjects showed the usual higher rate of stuttering on consonants, though there were differences in which consonants were stuttered most, and one subject showed more stuttering on vowels. A markedly higher rate was found on initial words of sentences in two subjects, and these two subjects were also exceptional in stuttering more on content than function words, and in showing a type of stutter characterized by blocks rather than repetitions. Possible explanations for this pattern are discussed. Contrary to Taylor (1966) there were significant correlations between stuttering and grammatical class even when initial phoneme and word in sentence were held constant. There were no significant changes within sessions. Two subjects showed a significant decrease between sessions, one showed an increase; these changes were due to familiarity with the experimental situation, rather than with passages per se.

Adolescent↗

Voice initiation and termination times in stuttering and nonstuttering children.

The times needed to initiate and terminate voicing in response to series of short segments of 1000 Hz pure-tone auditory signal were studied for stuttering and nonstuttering children. The effects of random reward and nonreward on the phonatory response time also were studied. The experimental group consisted of 20 children, 11 of whom had other speech and/or language problems in addition to stuttering and nine whose only communication disorder was stuttering. The control group consisted of 20 normal-speaking children balanced with the stuttering group for sex and age. Children with speech and/or language problems in addition to stuttering were found to have significantly slower voice initiation and termination times than the normal-speaking children. The children with stuttering as the only speech and/or language problem generally did not differ significantly from the normal-speaking children in phonation times. The data suggest that whereas older stuttering children have longer phonation times than do nonstuttering children, younger stuttering children do not. Voicing times for responses following nonrewarded responses tended to be shorter than those for responses following rewarded responses for both groups.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Language onset and concomitant speech and language problems in subgroups of stutterers and their siblings.

Time of language onset and frequencies of speech and language problems were examined in stutterers and their nonstuttering siblings. These families were grouped according to six characteristics of the index stutterer: sex, recovery or persistence of stuttering, and positive or negative family history of stuttering. Stutterers and their nonstuttering same-sex siblings were found to be distributed identically in early, average, and late categories of language onset. Comparisons of six subgroups of stutterers and their respective nonstuttering siblings showed no significant differences in the number of their reported articulation problems. Stutterers who were reported to be late talkers did not differ from their nonstuttering siblings in the frequency of their articulation problems, but these two groups had significantly higher frequencies of articulation problems than did stutterers who were early or average talkers and their siblings.

Articulation Disorders↗

Distribution of stuttering in sentences: relationship to sentence length and clause position.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of sentence length and clause position on stuttering in the complex sentences of two languages--English and Kannada. Ten monolingual adult stutterers read 20 sets of sentences while 10 bilingual adult stutterers read 40 sets of sentences (20 sets in each of the two languages). Each set consisted of a short sentence and two long sentences. Results indicated that (a) a clause placed at the beginning of a sentence was stuttered more often than the same clause placed at the end of the sentence and more than the same clause as an isolated sentence; (b) a clause placed at the beginning of a sentence was stuttered more often than the same clause placed at the end of a sentence, irrespective of sentence length; and (c) stuttering occurred more often on the first clause of a sentence than on the second in proportion to the difference in word length between the two clauses. These results suggest that the occurrence of stuttering might be related to the demands that speech makes on motor planning, particularly at the beginning of sentences, and might have significance for the speech breakdown views on stuttering.

Adolescent↗

Interruptions as a variable in stuttering and disfluency.

Parental verbal behavior is often cited as a major precipitating and maintaining factor in the onset and development of stuttering. Parents are frequently counseled to avoid interrupting their stuttering child. The purpose of the present study was to determine (a) whether mothers of preschool stutterers interrupt children's speech more frequently than mothers of nonstutterers, (b) whether stutterers interrupt the speech of mothers more frequently than nonstutterers, and (c) whether there is relationship between interruptive behavior and the occurrence of children's disfluencies. Twenty-four preschool boys (12 stutterers and 12 nonstutterers) and their mothers participated in the study. Ten-min, conversational speech samples of mothers interacting with their own children, unfamiliar stutterers, and unfamiliar nonstutterers were analyzed. Results indicated that mothers of nonstutterers interrupted the disfluent speech of stutterers significantly more often than did mothers of stutterers. Most importantly, all mothers interrupted children's disfluent speech significantly more than they interrupted children's fluent speech. Further, all children demonstrated a tendency to be disfluent when they interrupted a mother.

Child, Preschool↗