This volume provides a comprehensive and in-depth handbook of qualitative research in the field of communication disorders. It introduces and illustrates the wide range of qualitative paradigms that have been used in recent years to investigate various aspects of communication disorders. The first part of the Handbook introduces in some detail the…

A reliable and practical subtype system of stuttering should enhance all related scientific work concerned with this disorder. Although a fair number of classification systems have been offered, to date, none has received wide recognition or has been routinely applied in research or clinical spheres. Whereas progress has been made in understanding…

Data on disfluencies in the speech of non-stuttering adults are relevant to several aspects of the assessment and treatment of adults who stutter. Currently, very few sources provide relevant data. In the existing literature on normally fluent speakers, there is no consistency in sample length or topic or in which types of disfluency are counted.…

Comparison of the formant frequencies of 15 adult stutterers' fluent and disfluent vowels and of stutterers' and nonstutterers' fluent vowels indicated that differences (between stutterers and nonstutterers) could be accounted for by differences in vocal tract dimensions. No differences were found between frequencies of fluent and disfluent vowels…

Evaluation of 10 stutterers and 10 nonstutterers (all adults) on masking level differences (MLD) and synthetic sentence identification tasks indicated that stutterers produced significantly poorer MLDs than nonstutterers. There were no significant differences on the synthetic sentence identification task. (Author/DB)

Surface electrodes were used to describe the perioral reflexes in seven stutterers and five nonstutterers and electromyographic (EMG) recordings were obtained at electrode sites associated with the orbicularis oris inferior muscle and the depressor labia inferior muscle. A difference was noted in the pattern of reflex response between the two…

Surface electrodes were used to describe the perioral reflexes in seven stutterers and five nonstutterers and electromyographic (EMG) recordings were obtained at electrode sites associated with the orbicularis oris inferior muscle and the depressor labia inferior muscle. A difference was noted in the pattern of reflex response between the two…

This study examined whether stuttering speakers (N=10) differed from fluent speakers in relations between the neural control systems for speech and life support. It concluded that in some stuttering speakers the relations between respiratory controllers are atypical, but that high participation by the high frequency oscillation-producing circuitry…

The paper reviews approaches for the investigation of speech quality in stuttering treatment including speech quality research in areas beyond stuttering, stuttering treatment speech quality research, pertinent findings from nontreatment stuttering research, and issues in recent speech quality management research with stutterers. (Author/DB)

Fourteen right-handed stutterers and 14 normal speakers responded to monaurally presented stimuli with their right and left hands. Results suggested a bilateral model of neurolinguistic organization for stutterers in which both hemispheres must participate simultaneously in the decoding process. (Author/DB)

This study investigated whether neuromotor differences between adults who stutter (n=10) and gender- and age-matched non-stuttering adults (n=10) are not limited to the movements involved in speech production. Results revealed significant differences between groups on measures of lip and jaw closing (but not opening) movements during speech and in…

Comparison of 10 stuttering and 10 nonstuttering young adult subjects on self-paced rhythmic tasks at various rates found that the stutterers performed more slowly than the nonstutterers and were less variable than nonstutterers suggesting less flexible systems more susceptible to breakdown. (Author/DB)

The study investigated the reaction times in the fluent speech utterances of 20 adult stutterers and 20 nonstutterers. Results indicated that reaction times for longer utterances and for utterances requiring minimal preparation were longer for stutterers than for nonstutterers, suggesting stutterers may have difficulty in motor programing of…

Conversational speech of five children who stutter was recorded and then portions manipulated to modify interval duration and vowel duration. Results indicated that both interval and vowel durations moderately affected listeners' perception of stuttering. Generally, repetitions with short vowel and interval durations were judged as more…

The study investigated cerebral organization for visual language processing with 14 adult stutterers. Results showed the right hemisphere was superior for analyzing the concrete words while the left hemisphere was responsible for processing the abstract items suggesting some form of linguistic competition between the two hemispheres of this…