Relationship of frequency with which vocalization must be initiated in a given speech segment and frequency of attendant disfluency was investigated by comparing stutterers' readings of passages composed intirely of voiced speech sounds or containing both voiceless and voiced sounds, the latter requiring more off-on phonatory adjustments.…

The case of a 15-year-old stutterer is presented to illustrate A. Lazarus's multimodal behavior therapy model, proposed to integrate various procedures. A combination of role playing, metronome use, biofeedback training, and assertion training was used. (CL)

The study assessed the effect of increasing the difficulty of reading material on the frequency and type of disfluency in the oral reading of 80 normally fluent elementary school children. Results indicated a significant increase in total moments of disfluency and four specific types of disfluency as the difficulty of reading material increased.…

Twenty-five male stutterers and 25 male non-stutterers (mean age 9 years) read or recited under conditions of normal and delayed auditory feedback to determine the correlation between disfluencies in speech and normal or delayed feedback. (Author/PHR)

Voicing onset changes between control conditions and three fluency-evoking conditions (choral reading, delayed auditory feedback, and noise) were studied in 10 individuals who stutter and in 12 controls. Results indicate that although fluency-evoking conditions modified some voicing-onset behaviors, these modifications did not relate to…

This study examined a validation procedure combining self-reports with independent verification to identify cases of recovery from stuttering without formal treatment. A Speech Behavior Checklist was administered to 42 individuals familiar with recovered subjects' past speech. Analysis of subjects' descriptions of their past stuttering was…

This study examined intrajudge and interjudge agreement for the Lidcombe Behavioral Data Language (LBDL), a behaviorally based stuttering taxonomy. Ten experienced speech language pathologists and 10 undergraduates applied the LBDL to stuttered speech on two occasions. Intrajudge agreement was high for both groups, but only the experienced judges…

The paper argues that listeners are unable to judge unit-by-unit occurrences of stuttering acceptably. Reasons for this state of affairs and its implications for therapy, theory, and research are analyzed. An alternative speech production definition with its implications is proposed, and a diagnostic method of validating authentic stuttering is…

The commentary to EC 232 373 and EC 232 374 discusses whether stuttering is really what the listener perceives, the stutterer senses, or the dictionary states. It concludes that stuttering can probably be defined in appropriate contexts as any or all of these three things. (JDD)

A questionnaire asking respondents to list adjectives describing four hypothetical stutterers (a female child, male child, female adult, and male adult) was completed by 42 school administrators in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia. The majority of reported adjectives were negative stereotypical personality traits. (Author/JDD)

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"…

Features of beginning stuttering in young children are reviewed. Attention is directed to studies of: frequency, type, and duration of disfluency, including number of repeated units and additional temporal aspects of instances of sound, syllable, and whole-word repetition; and associated speech and nonspeech behaviors produced by children who…

Analysis of pedigrees from parents of 69 preschool children who stuttered revealed that more male than female relatives ever stuttered but that female subjects who stuttered had more female relatives who ever stuttered than did male subjects. Segregation analyses suggest that transmission of a single major genetic locus increases the liability to…