Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether emotional reactivity and emotional stress of children who stutter (CWS) are associated with their stuttering frequency, (b) when the relationship between emotional reactivity and stuttering frequency is more likely to exist, and (c) how these associations are mediated by a 3rd…

Purpose: This study sought to determine whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and executive functions are associated with stuttered speech disfluencies of young children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS). Method: Thirty-six young CWS and 36 CWNS were exposed to neutral, negative, and positive emotion-inducing video clips, followed by…

Purpose: This preliminary investigation assessed the attentional processes of preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) during Traditional cueing and Affect cueing tasks. Method: Participants consisted of 12 3- to 5-year-old CWS and the same number of CWNS (all boys). Both talker groups participated in two tasks of shifting and…

This study assessed emotional and speech-language contributions to childhood stuttering. A dual diathesis-stressor framework guided this study, in which both linguistic requirements and skills, and emotion and its regulation, are hypothesized to contribute to stuttering. The language diathesis consists of expressive and receptive language skills.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of conceptual and perceptual properties of words on the speed and accuracy of lexical retrieval of children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) during a picture-naming task. Participants consisted of 13 3-5-year-old CWS and the same number of CWNS. All participants had speech, language,…

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…

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the influence of lexical/semantic priming on the speech reaction time of young children who do and do not stutter during a picture-naming task. Participants were 23 children who stutter, age-matched ([+ or -] 4 months) to 23 children who do not stutter, ranging in age from 3;0 (years;months) to 5;11.…

A study compared the laryngeal behavior associated with the perceptually fluent speech of 3-to-7-year-old stutterers (N=8) to that of normally fluent peers (N=8). Analysis of electroglottograph readings indicated that normally fluent children exhibited significantly more typical patterns during consonant-vowel and vowel-consonant transitions than…

This study examined speech disfluency clusters in the speech of 60 3- to 6-year-old children, half of whom stuttered. Results indicated that the children who stuttered produced significantly more "stuttering-stuttering" clusters and significantly more "stuttering-repair" clusters, whereas nonstutterers never produced "stuttering-stuttering"…

Sound/syllable repetitions of 13 young children who stutter were acoustically analyzed to identify differences in second formant (F2) transitions between the stuttered and nonstuttered portions of the words. Findings indicated no significant differences in the frequency of occurrence of missing or atypical F2 transitions for young children at…

This study assessed the nonspeech behaviors associated with young stutterers (n=30, mean age 54 months) and normally fluent children's comparable fluent utterances. Findings suggested that children can be classified as stutterers on the basis of their nonspeech behaviors, which may reflect cognitive, emotional, linguistic, and physical events…

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…

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the temperamental characteristics of children who do (CWS) and do not (CWNS) stutter using a norm-referenced parent-report questionnaire. Participants were 31 CWS and 31 CWNS between the ages of 3;0 (years;months) and 5;4 (CWS: mean age = 48.03 months; CWNS: mean age = 48.58 months). The CWS were…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of a 3-year project which analyzed the speech and related behaviors of 28 young children (mean age 52.5 months) who stuttered, their mothers, and similar non-stuttering children and mothers. A loosely structured conversation between each mother and child was recorded and analyzed. In…

A study investigated speech disfluency and stuttering behaviors in 3- and 4-year old children who do (CWS, n=36) and do not (CWNS, n=36) stutter. Four out of 5 measures significantly differed between groups. Within the CWS group there was a significant relationship between stuttering onset and percentage of stuttering-like disfluencies. (Contains…