Fourteen adults who stuttered and 14 adults who did not participated in a self-paced word-by-word reading experiment. Results indicated that the two groups were not different with respect to speed of word identification but that persons who stuttered retrieved semantic information more slowly than those who did not stutter. (Author/PB)

This paper presents results of a controlled trial of 3 child stuttering treatment strategies in 97 subjects. All 3 treatments (electromyography feedback, intensive smooth speech, and home-based smooth speech) were very successful in the long term for 70% of the group, with electromyography and home-based treatment appearing to be especially…

Two studies of a single case (a 5-year-old girl) considered variables in indirect stuttering treatment. In the first study, mother's speech rate was found to correlate with the child's stuttering; in the second study, different parent variables were found to relate to either primary (effortless) or secondary (tense) stuttering. (Author/DB)

Four studies evaluated perceptions of fluency of persons who had been treated with the "smooth speech" fluency shaping technique. The studies examined (1) client satisfaction with treatment; (2) increased employment opportunities for program completers; (3) employer perceptions of employees' speech quality; and (4) possible determinants…

Forty stutterers and forty nonstutterers in Japan were tested for susceptibility to delayed auditory feedback while reading passages under amplified delay conditions. Susceptibility was higher for stutterers than nonstutterers and for nonstuttering men than nonstuttering women. Stutterers appeared to rely on auditory feedback for speech control…

Thirty-six elementary school students repeated short meaningful, long meaningful, and long nonce utterances in response to a visual cue. Nonstuttering, stuttering only, and stuttering-plus (concomitant speech and/or language problems) children responded differently to utterance length and meaningfulness. Results suggest that the three groups may…

This study sought to identify patterns of impaired acoustic laryngeal reaction time as a function of response complexity parallel to metabolic measures of brain function. Findings indicated that the disruption in speech motor control for 16 adult male developmental stutterers was systematically related to metabolic asymmetry in left superior and…

A parent-conducted program of verbal response-contingent stimulation was effectively used to reduce stuttering to near zero levels in 12 children (younger than age 5). Treatments were completed in a median of 10.5 1-hour clinic sessions and 84.5 days. (Author/DB)

Speech-associated attitudes of 70 stuttering and 271 nonstuttering Belgian elementary and middle school children were assessed. Stuttering students evidenced significantly more negative attitudes toward speech than did their nonstuttering peers. These attitudes became more negative with age among stuttering children, whereas attitudes of…

Ten speech-language pathology students judged five-second audiovisually recorded speech intervals as stuttered or nonstuttered in group and single-subject experiments. Results showed that judgment accuracy tended to increase after training, both for speakers used during the training process and unfamiliar speakers. Slight increases in interjudge…

This study of 20 stuttering and 20 nonstuttering preschool children found that stuttering children scored lower on 7 out of 8 language measures, with no significant intergroup differences on articulation proficiency or fluency. There were few significant correlations between measures of stuttering rate, speaking rate, and language performance…

Ten preschool subjects exhibiting more disfluencies than 50 other subjects with language disorders were found to be older and score higher on vocabulary. Findings suggest some children with language disorders are at risk for fluency breakdown because of dysynchronies in development of lexical and syntactic aspects of language or as a result of…

A rating instrument is described that can be used to assess the results of stuttering treatments. The instrument yields a comprehensive and detailed description of speech quality in terms of articulation, phonation, pitch, and loudness, as well as naturalness. Psychometric characteristics of the instrument are analyzed, and methodological problems…