SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “STUTTERING”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 469 records · Page 26Linked to original sources

PubMed1987

Site of penetrating brain lesions causing chronic acquired stuttering.

Ten subjects exhibited acquired stuttering that had persisted for 10 to 15 years following penetrating missile wounds sustained during the Vietnam War. None had a history of developmental or chronic adult stuttering. In comparison with other head-injured subjects and normal control subjects, the subjects with acquired stuttering had significant deficits in skilled rapid hand movements and oral and speech movements, suggesting a motor control disorder. The identified brain lesions of the acquired stuttering group were on the right in 5 subjects, on the left in 4, and bilateral in 1. The internal and external capsules, the frontal white matter, and the striatum were more frequently involved in the acquired stuttering group than in other head-injured subjects (p less than or equal to 0.05). This speech rhythm and rate disorder was not associated with evident cortical lesions in either hemisphere but with predominantly unilateral lesions of the subcortical pyramidal and extrapyramidal systems.

Adult↗

PubMed1984

Segregation analyses of stuttering.

Although stuttering is known to be a familial disorder, no clear evidence regarding precise mode of transmission has arisen from previous research. In this report segregation analysis is applied to data on 386 stuttering probands and their first-degree relatives in an effort to discriminate among possible genetic models for the transmission of stuttering. Two different segregation analysis programs, PAP and POINTER, gave comparable results with respect to both hypothesis testing and parameter estimation. Specifically, the transmission of stuttering observed in these families cannot be adequately explained by a Mendelian major locus. The hypothesis of no polygenic component in the transmission of stuttering can, however, be rejected. Existence in these data of potential heterogeneity and possible violations of assumptions concerning ascertainment are considered in interpreting the results.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Return of stuttering after stroke.

The pathophysiology of developmental or acquired stuttering still remains an enigma. In a few cases, the developmental stuttering that had disappeared spontaneously or as a result of therapy reoccurred following a brain lesion. We report on a patient with return of developmental stuttering following a left hemispheric stroke. This case supports the theory that acquired brain lesions may cause a return of stuttering, possibly by interfering with the compensatory mechanism(s) that once had relieved the developmental stuttering.

Aged↗

PubMed1988

The regulated-breathing method for stuttering: an experimental evaluation.

The regulated-breathing method of Azrin and Nunn (1974) appears to be one of the most promising treatments of stuttering in adults. Their study, however, has some methodological limitations. In particular no operational definition of stuttering is provided, and all measures of stuttering are based on self-report. The present study is an experimental evaluation of the regulated-breathing method. Thirty-two subjects were randomly assigned either to treatment or to a waiting-list control group. The treatment was completed during one single session of 2-3 hours. Both frequency of stuttering and rate of speech were measured before and after treatment, and on follow-ups 2, 3 and 8 months later. The dependent variables were assessed under conditions of both phrase reading and spontaneous speech. Both obtrusive and unobtrusive measures of speech were recorded. At the 8 month follow-up, stuttering in the treatment group was significantly less than in the control group, and also significantly less than before treatment.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Simplified treatment and long term follow-up for stuttering in adults: a study of two cases.

A simplified treatment for stuttering, involving awareness and competing response training, was implemented with two adult stutterers. The procedures resulted in a decrease in stuttering during reading and conversation for both subjects, although only one subject achieved the criterion of less than 3% stuttered words. Long-term follow up (1.5 years and 2 years 3 months) indicated that gains were maintained by one subject while stuttering increased somewhat for the other subject. Both subjects rated the treatment as acceptable and credible and indicated satisfaction with the results. Social validity ratings indicated greatly improved fluency from baseline to post-treatment.

Adult↗

PubMed1975

The effect of oral sensory deprivation on stuttering behavior.

To assess the role of oral sensation in the execution of a stuttering moment, six adult male stutterers, ranging in severity, provided samples of spontaneous speech in three experimental conditions: control, anesthetic, and placebo. In the anesthetic condition, sensory deprivation of the oral cavity was achieved by means of a series of nerve-block injections. The placebo condition involved insertions of a hypodermic needle but no anesthetic solution was injected. The speech samples were analyzed for frequency of stuttering by dysfluency type. In addition, severity ratings were made for all identified dysfluencies. The results indicated that oral sensory deprivation was associated with a significant increase in the frequency and severity of stuttering. This effect was particularly evident in the class of dysfluencies termed "prolonged articulatory postures." The results for the control and placebo conditions were not observed to differ. These findings were interpreted as evidence of both open-loop and feedback-dependent regulation processes during the moment of stuttering.

Adult↗

PubMed1976

The influence of task presentation and information load on the adaptation effect in stutterers and normal speakers.

Fourteen stutterers and 14 normal speakers read two passages differing in information value under two different conditions. Condition I provided subjects with a priori knowledge regarding the experimental limits and requirements. Condition II withheld such knowledge. Results indicate that adaptation curves for both stutterers and normal speakers were influenced by the information value of the reading passage. Less adaptation was observed with the high information than with the low information passage. The task presentation variable differentiated stutterers from normal speakers. When a priori instructions were provided to stutterers, the adaptation curve assumed a smooth, decelerating course. When a priori instructions were withheld, the curve deviated from the expected course. For normal speakers, identical adaptation trends were observed whether or not a priori instructions were provided. Stuttering adaptation is a function of both linguistic and situational variables; normal nonfluency adaptation is primarily a function of linguistic variables. Theoretical, experimental, and clinical implications are offered.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1983

Stutterers' practices: folk remedies and therapeutic intervention.

Therapy with stutterers often attempts to eliminate the secondary "tricks" or "crutches" used by stutterers in social interaction. This study challenges such treatment, suggesting that these natural folk remedies are competent practices devised by stutterers to deal with the problematic contingencies posed by social life. Stutterers, rather than being manipulative, are highly attuned to the taken-for-granted structure of everyday interaction. I detail a number of the practices used by stutterers and argue that they comprise part of the ensemble of interactional and conversational practices used by "normal" speakers. The therapeutic implications suggest that therapists work with these natural remedies rather than denigrating them in the course of treatment.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1989

Sequence initiation performance by stutterers under conditions of response competition.

Male stutterers and nonstutterers were compared on their performance of a task that required tapping keys as rapidly and accurately as possible to reproduce different sequences of finger movements as soon as they had been demonstrated on a visual display panel. Testing using the right hand alone confirmed previous findings that stutterers are significantly slower than nonstutterers in initiating new movement sequences and make significantly more errors on initial sequences. Subjects were also tested on this sequence reproduction task while they performed concurrently a manual task with the left hand that required turning a knob in response to signal tones. The hypothesis underlying the study was that associated with stuttering is a dysfunction in the mechanisms regulating interhemispheric communication, and it was predicted that the concurrent task would interfere more with the sequence reproduction task performance of stutterers than with that of nonstutterers. A joint analysis of the speed and accuracy aspects of performance of the two tasks confirmed the prediction. Additional research required to clarify whether the effects are in fact due to the hypothesized interhemispheric mechanisms or to a generally greater susceptibility of stutterers to interference from any concurrent motor or cognitive activity is discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Stuttering and sensory gating: a study of acoustic startle prepulse inhibition.

It was hypothesized that stuttering may be related to impaired sensory gating, leading to overflow of superfluous disturbing auditory feedback and breakdown of the speech sequence. This hypothesis was tested using the acoustic startle prepulse inhibition (PPI) paradigm. A group of 22 adults with developmental stuttering were compared with controls regarding the degree of PPI. No significant differences were found between the stuttering adults and the control group; the groups showed similar means and distribution. Likewise, no relation between the degree of PPI and the effect of altered auditory feedback on stuttering was found. In summary, the results of the study indicate that there is no relation between stuttering and PPI.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

The transition to increased automaticity during finger sequence learning in adult males who stutter.

UNLABELLED: The present study compared the automaticity levels of persons who stutter (PWS) and persons who do not stutter (PNS) on a practiced finger sequencing task under dual task conditions. Automaticity was defined as the amount of attention required for task performance. Twelve PWS and 12 control subjects practiced finger tapping sequences under single and then dual task conditions. Control subjects performed the sequencing task significantly faster and less variably under single versus dual task conditions while PWS' performance was consistently slow and variable (comparable to the dual task performance of control subjects) under both conditions. Control subjects were significantly more accurate on a colour recognition distracter task than PWS under dual task conditions. These results suggested that control subjects transitioned to quick, accurate and increasingly automatic performance on the sequencing task after practice, while PWS did not. Because most stuttering treatment programs for adults include practice and automatization of new motor speech skills, findings of this finger sequencing study and future studies of speech sequence learning may have important implications for how to maximize stuttering treatment effectiveness. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to: (1) Define automaticity and explain the importance of dual task paradigms to investigate automaticity; (2) Relate the proposed relationship between motor learning and automaticity as stated by the authors; (3) Summarize the reviewed literature concerning the performance of PWS on dual tasks; and (4) Explain why the ability to transition to automaticity during motor learning may have important clinical implications for stuttering treatment effectiveness.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Altered auditory feedback and the treatment of stuttering: a review.

UNLABELLED: Several authors have suggested that devices delivering altered auditory feedback (AAF) may be a viable treatment for adults and children who stutter. This paper reviews published, peer reviewed journal papers from the past 10 years that investigate the effect of AAF during different speaking conditions, tasks and situations. A review of that literature indicates that considerable experimental evidence and limited Phase 1 treatment outcome evidence has been accumulated about the effect of AAF on the speech of people who stutter. However, critical knowledge about the effect of AAF during conversational speech and in everyday speaking situations is missing. Knowledge about how to determine the correct levels of AAF for individuals, and the characteristics of those likely to benefit from AAF, also needs to be established. At present there is no reason to accept a recent suggestion that AAF devices would be a defensible clinical option for children. In general device development and availability has occurred at a faster pace than clinical trials research. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: After reading this paper readers should be able to: (1) describe what altered auditory feedback is and common ways the speech signal is altered in stuttering; (2) describe the effects of AAF on the speech of adults who stutter; (3) provide a critical analysis of the literature in the area of AAF and stuttering.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2006

Phoneme monitoring in silent naming and perception in adults who stutter.

UNLABELLED: The present study investigated phonological encoding skills in persons who stutter (PWS). Participants were 10 PWS (M=31.8 years, S.D.=5.9) matched for age, gender, and handedness with 12 persons who do not stutter (PNS) (M=24.3 years, S.D.=4.3). The groups were compared in a phoneme monitoring task performed during silent picture naming. The phonological complexity of the target items in the task was varied such that participants monitored either compound words or noun phrases. Performance in this task was compared to phoneme monitoring performed on aurally presented target words to investigate whether any differences observed in silent naming were also evident in perception. Analysis of the response time data, in milliseconds, indicated that PWS were significantly slower as compared to PNS in phoneme monitoring during silent naming; group differences were not obtained in the perception task. The groups were also comparable in the response time to phoneme monitoring within compound words and noun phrases in both silent naming and perception. The findings suggested that PWS were slower in the encoding of segmental, phonological units during silent naming. Furthermore, absence of such differences in perception ruled out a general monitoring deficit in PWS. Findings are interpreted within the context of the psycholinguistic theories of stuttering that postulate phonological encoding and/or monitoring as a causal variable in stuttering. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: As a result of this activity, the participant should: (1) describe relevant literature on phonological encoding skills in children and adults who stutter, (2) identify paradigms that can be used to investigate phonological processing in PWS, and (3) discuss the role of phonological encoding in speech production.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

The inhibition of stuttering via the presentation of natural speech and sinusoidal speech analogs.

Sensory signals containing speech or gestural (articulatory) information (e.g., choral speech) have repeatedly been found to be highly effective inhibitors of stuttering. Sine wave analogs of speech consist of a trio of changing pure tones representative of formant frequencies. They are otherwise devoid of traditional speech cues, yet have proven to evoke consistent linguistic percepts in listeners. Thus, we investigated the potency of sinusoidal speech for inhibiting stuttering. Ten adults who stutter read while listening to (a) forward-flowing natural speech; (b) forward-flowing sinusoid analogs of natural speech; (c) reversed natural speech; (d) reversed sinusoid analogs of natural speech; and (e) a continuous 1000 Hz pure tone. The levels of stuttering inhibition achieved using the sinusoidal stimuli were potent and not significantly different from those achieved using natural speech (approximately 50% in forward conditions and approximately 25% in the reversed conditions), suggesting that the patterns of undulating pure tones are sufficient to endow sinusoidal sentences with 'quasi-gestural' qualities. These data highlight the sensitivity of a specialized 'phonetic module' for extracting gestural information from sensory stimuli. Stuttering inhibition is thought to occur when perceived gestural information facilitates fluent productions via the engagement of mirror neurons (e.g., in Broca's area), which appear to play a crucial role in our ability to perceive and produce speech.

Brain↗

PubMed2004

The lack of focused anticipation of verbal information in stutterers: a magnetoencephalographic study.

The motivation of this work was to investigate stuttering--a disorder of speech motor control--in the light of preparatory neural activity of voluntary movements related to speech. To this end, brain activity was recorded with a whole cortex magnetoencephalograph (MEG) in developmental stutterers and nonstutterers while three different tasks of single-word reading were performed. Visually presented words had to be silently read immediately after word presentation (condition 1), spoken aloud immediately after word presentation (condition 2), or spoken aloud after a delay of 1.3 s as indicated by a second visual stimulus (condition 3). Condition 2 clearly showed marked neurophysiological differences between stutterers and nonstutterers. Only nonstutterers showed clear neural activity before speech onset, which is interpreted as being linked to visual word presentation and to reflect focused verbal anticipation. This prespeech activity might reflect the "Bereitschaftsfeld2" (BF2) that is the later component of the "Bereitschaftsfeld", a well-known preparatory activity described for many other voluntary movements. Our results strongly link the lack of such preparatory brain activity at the single-word level to the disability of fluent speech in stutterers. The present results strongly support the notion that stuttering is related to impaired focused attention or anticipation.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Brain imaging studies of developmental stuttering.

UNLABELLED: This paper reviews recent brain imaging research on stuttering against a background of studies that the writer and colleagues have been conducting at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. The paper begins by reviewing some pertinent background to recent neuroimaging investigations of developmental stuttering. It then outlines the findings from four brain imaging studies that the San Antonio group has conducted using H2(15)O positron emission tomography (PET). Finally, some of the principal findings that are emerging across brain imaging studies of stuttering are reviewed, while also highlighting--and attempting to resolve--some apparent across-study inconsistencies among the findings. Research on stuttering using magnetoencephalogaphy (MEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is also considered. The findings increasingly point to a failure of normal temporal lobe activation during speech that may either contribute to (or is the result of) a breakdown in the sequencing of processing among premotor regions implicated in phonologic planning. LEARNING OUTCOMES: As a result of this activity, the participant will become familiar with some recent neurophysiological correlates of stuttering and what they suggest about the nature of this disorder.

Brain↗

PubMed2003

fMRI of developmental stuttering: a pilot study.

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the feasibility of fMRI in the study of developmental stuttering. Speech contrasts (loud versus silent reading) and language contrasts (reading of semantically meaningful text versus nonsense words) of six developmental stutterers and six nonstutterers were compared using a commercial 1 Tesla MR-Scanner (Siemens Expert). Results indicate that mapping cortical function in persons who stutter is indeed feasible, even with a 1TMR-system. Compared to normals the stutterers seemed to employ different and particularly less differentiated auditory and motor feedback strategies in speech. They apparently rely on auditory processing and on cerebellar contribution as much during silent reading as during reading aloud. Moreover, they showed a greater involvement of the right hemisphere in language processing, activating not only the typical language areas on the left but also and with equal magnitude the right side homologues of these areas. In spite of the promising results, at present several practical problems such as possible movement artifacts and possible masking through scanner noise still hamper a more straightforward use of fMRI in the study of developmental stuttering.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

The epigenesis of stuttering.

UNLABELLED: This paper examines the data on which the Demands and Capacities Model (DCM) is based with the purpose of identifying areas where future research might determine consilience among genetic influences at the physiological, behavioral, and cultural levels. The determination of consilience across different levels would tend to validate the genetic influence on stuttering, but more importantly it would also sharpen the focus of researchers interested in the various possible expressions that genetic influences might have and the way in which they influence the development of the disorder. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will (1) learn about the distinction, as outlined in the DCM, between environmental/contextual influences on stuttering development and intrinsic/genetic influences on stuttering development; (2) learn about the concept of consilience and its usefulness in conferring validity on parallel constructs at the physiological, behavioral, and cultural levels of stuttering theory; and (3) be able to identify potential areas for research that might help in refining our understanding of the genetic influences on stuttering development.

Attitude to Health↗