The study compared speech naturalness ratings of 280 perceptually fluent speech samples produced by nonstutterers and stutterers who had been treated in six different therapy programs. A significant difference existed between the naturalness ratings of nonstutterers and the treated stutterers. No difference was found in the posttreatment…

Four experienced stuttering researchers viewed videodisks of spontaneous speech from chronic stutterers and attempted to locate the precise onset and offset of individual stuttering events. Results showed interjudge disagreements that challenge the reliability and validity of onset and offset judgments. Highly agreed stuttering events were…

The occurrence of stuttering on stress-peak and unstressed syllables in connected speech was studied in 10 young adult stutterers. Results showed a significant coincidence of stutter events and syllabic stress peaks, particularly in polysyllabic words, though stuttering on the first three words of principal clauses appeared independent of syllabic…

This study investigated the disfluencies and phonic tics in an 18- year-old male with Tourette syndrome before and after a 3-week period of speech therapy. The subject's speech pattern did not completely conform to the classic pattern of stuttering but bore more resemblance to cluttering. A limited number of therapy sessions resulted in a…

To investigate the effects of stuttering therapy involving the avoidance reduction - anxiety reduction approach, a study was conducted with 16 adult stutters who received group and individual therapy for two evenings a week for nine months. Evaluations were made nine months prior to therapy, at the beginning and end of therapy, and nine months…

Tape recorded speech samples from 10 4-year-old boys in their preschool classroom and in a structured interview situation were compared for frequency and duration of disfluency. (KW)

Fifteen listeners using the Listener Comfort Scale rated videos of 10 adults before and after stuttering treatment and videos of 10 controls. Results were compared with those of 15 listeners who used the Speech Naturalness Scale. Reliability of the Speech Naturalness Scale was superior; however, the Listener Comfort Scale captured different…

Comparison of disfluent conversational utterances of 14 children who stutter and 14 children (mean age of both groups 52 months) who do not stutter found that for both groups, disfluency clusters were typically produced at clause onset and within the most complex linguistic contexts and that they reflect the effects of producing multiple syntactic…

Pressure buildup patterns preceding the onset of phonation were studied in 573 fluent utterances of 10 stutterers and in 552 utterances of 7 controls. Stutterers evidenced deviant patterns of subglottal pressure buildup and abrupt voice onsets more often than did controls; occurrence of jitter and shimmer did not differ significantly. (Author/JDD)

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…

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…

A panel of speech professionals was randomly presented with speech samples from four neurogenic and four developmental stutterers and was asked to classify them accordingly without any patient knowledge. Results support the view that, based on the patient's verbal output only, it is difficult to distinguish between neurogenic and developmental…

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…