Cluster formation in speech disfluencies of 15 preschool stuttering children and 15 nonstuttering controls was studied and compared. Clustering was found to be a significant factor in disfluent speech for both normal and stuttering children, but proportions of clustered disfluencies and size of clusters were significantly greater in the…

Seventy-nine children (ages 3 through 7) were asked to discriminate between the speech (fluent and disfluent) of two puppets, identify the one who "speaks like you," and evaluate their speech. Children from age 3 showed evidence of some awareness of disfluencies but most children reached full awareness at 5. Negative evaluation of…

A study evaluated the language production of 12 children (ages 5-8) who continued stuttering for 36 months or more after onset, 10 who recovered 18-36 months post onset, and 10 who recovered within 18 months of onset of stuttering. The majority of the children performed in the average range on measures of language production. (Author/CR)