This study was designed to characterize the brain system that monitors speech in people who stutter and matched controls. We measured two electrophysiological peaks associated with action-monitoring: the error-related negativity (ERN) and the error positivity (Pe). Both the ERN and Pe were reliably observed after errors in a rhyming task and a…

Relatively recently, experimental studies of linguistic processing speed in children who stutter (CWS) have emerged, some of which suggest differences in performance among CWS compared to children who do not stutter (CWNS). What is not yet well understood is the extent to which underlying cognitive skills may impact performance on timed tasks of…

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…

Purpose: To investigate the holistic versus incremental phonological encoding processes of young children who stutter (CWS; N = 26) and age- and gender-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS; N = 26) via a picture-naming auditory priming paradigm. Method: Children named pictures during 3 auditory priming conditions: neutral, holistic, and…

This study examined interjudge agreement levels for five adult listeners assessing either overt stuttering or disfluency types in the spontaneous speech of eight young children. Results showed that the interjudge reliability for judgments based on a disfluency taxonomy was not significantly different from that based on stuttering. The importance…

This study evaluated recorded performances of 84 children of whom 22 had persistent stuttering. Although initially the persistent stuttering group had significantly poorer phonological skills, assessment after 1 and 2 years found no differences indicating faster phonological improvement for the persistent stuttering group. Results raise questions…

Clause, syllable, and response latency characteristics of conversational utterances were assessed in 14 boys who stuttered and 14 normally fluent boys. Findings suggest that changes in the number of clausal constituents that must be constructed, stored, or coordinated within an utterance may influence the likelihood of speech errors and, hence,…

Comparison of the speech fluency and phonology of 18 boys (mean age 61 months) who stuttered and demonstrated either normal or disordered phonology found that the two groups were generally similar in terms of their basic speech disfluency, nonsystematic speech error, and self-repair behaviors. Predictions of the covert repair hypothesis of…

A survey of 1,184 speech language pathologists found that of 2,628 children (grades 1-12) who stuttered, 62.6% had other concurring speech disorders, language disorders, or non-speech-language disorders. Articulation disorders (33.5%) and phonology disorders (12.7%) were the most frequently reported. Males were more likely to exhibit co-occurring…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of phonological neighborhood density on the speech reaction time (SRT) and errors of children who do and do not stutter during a picture-naming task. Participants were nine 3-5-year-old children who stutter (CWS) matched in age and gender to nine children who do not stutter (CWNS). Initial…