Awareness has been an important factor in theories of onset and development of stuttering. So far it has been suggested that even young children might be aware of their speech difficulty. The purpose of the present study was to investigate (a) the number of stuttering children aware of their speech difficulty, (b) the description of reported…

Although persistent developmental stuttering is known to affect daily living, just how great the impact is remains unclear. Furthermore, little is known about the underlying mechanisms which lead to a diminished quality of life (QoL). The primary objective of this study is to explore to what extent QoL is impaired in adults who stutter (AWS). In…

The effects of choral speech and altered auditory feedback (AAF) on stuttering frequency were compared to identify those properties of choral speech that make it a more effective condition for stuttering reduction. Seventeen adults who stutter (AWS) participated in an experiment consisting of special choral speech conditions that were manipulated…

Purpose: A field test of a survey instrument under development, the "Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes, Experimental Edition" ("POSHA-E"), designed to investigate language-, culture-, and nation-specific public opinions about stuttering is reported. This investigation compared English and French versions of the…

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.…

Purpose: Relatively recent research documents that visual choral speech, which represents an externally generated form of synchronous visual speech feedback, significantly enhanced fluency in those who stutter. As a consequence, it was hypothesized that self-generated synchronous and asynchronous visual speech feedback would likewise enhance…

This study investigated the maintenance of attention and adaptation to background stimuli of preschool children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS). Participants were 13 monolingual, Standard American English speaking, 3-5-year-old CWS and 14 CWNS. Results indicated that CWS were significantly more apt than CWNS to attend to or look at changes…

The specific mechanisms that underlie childhood stuttering are not fully understood. The current study investigated these mechanisms by comparing the effect on fluency of priming different components of a short sentence. The main findings were that: (1) both children who stutter (CWS) (n = 12, M age = 6;3) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) (n…

The purpose of this factorial study was to establish normative data for the Italian version of the Communication Attitude Test (CAT) in order to determine whether or not the speech-associated attitude reported by Italian children who stutter (CWS) differs significantly from that of their nonstuttering peers (CWNS). Toward this end, the Italian CAT…

A deficiency in sensorimotor integration in a person who stutters may be a factor in the pathophysiology of developmental stuttering. To test oral sensorimotor function in adults who stutter, we used a task that requires the coordination of a jaw-opening movement with phonation onset. The task was adapted from previous limb coordination studies,…

The relation between stuttering and aspects of language, including phonology, has been investigated for many years. Whereas past literature reported that the incidence of phonological difficulties is higher for children who stutter when compared to normally fluent children, the suggestion of association between the two disorders also drew several…

This exploratory study investigated sensory-motor mechanisms in five people who stutter (PWS) and five people who do not (PNS). Lip kinematic and coordination data were recorded as they produced bi-syllabic nonwords at two rates (normal and fast) in three conditions (jaw-free, immediately after insertion of a bite-block, and after a 10-min…

To determine how early "the stuttering stereotype" is assigned, 160 university students rated a hypothetical vignette depicting either a 3-, 4-, 5-, or 6-year-old with or without the statement "He stutters". A factor analysis of the semantic differential scale showed a three-factor solution comprised of 17 of the 25 bi-polar adjective pairs. The…

Purpose: The study was designed to see whether young children and adolescents who persist in their stutter (N=18) show differences in trait and/or state anxiety compared with people who recover from their stutter (N=17) and fluent control speakers (N=19). Method: A fluent control group, a group of speakers who have been documented as stuttering in…

The goal of this study was to evaluate stuttering frequency across a multidimensional (2 x 2) hierarchy of speech performance tasks. Specifically, this study examined the interaction between changes in length of utterance and levels of speech rate stability. Forty-four adult male speakers participated in the study (22 stuttering speakers and 22…