Abstracts for Poster Presentations
This study compares the speech rate
in bilinguals – Brazilian Portuguese and English. Participants were 10
adolescents, regularly enrolled in an English school in the city of
Purpose: to verify the influence of speech
disruption position in children. Method: 35 stuttering children (GI) and 35
fluent children (GII). Speech samples were gathered and speech disruptions were
analyzed according to their type, position within words and syllables. Results:
regarding the position within the word – for both groups there was a prevalence
of speech disruptions at the first syllable of the words; regarding the
position within the syllable – for both groups there was a prevalence of speech
disruptions at the nucleus position. Conclusion: the groups demonstrated a
similar behavior regarding the positional aspects of speech disruptions.
This study investigated the relationship between stuttering amelioration and cerebral activity. P300 event-related potentials were obtained pre and post-treatment in order to verify changes in signal amplitude and in the latency between waves. Three adult males, all stutterers, aged 20 to 31 years, volunteered to participate in the present study. Results indicate a significant positive correlation between the reduction in the percentage of stuttered syllables and the improvement in wave amplitude for the right ear, i.e. stutterers can exhibit different patterns of interhemispheric activity with a tonal P300 task after undergoing a fluency-enhancing program.
This
study assessed relations between children’s emotional reactivity, emotion regulation
and stuttering using psychophysiological (EEG) and
behavioral measures. Participants were preschool children who
stutter (CWS) and who do not stutter (CWNS) who listened to three background
conversations with happy, neutral, and angry emotional valence. Results
indicated that regulatory behavior duration for CWS significantly increased
during emotionally arousing conditions and that EEGs of CWS differed from CWNS
in right hemisphere alpha activity during the happy condition and in left
hemisphere temporal and parietal beta rhythm during the angry condition.
Findings suggest greater reactivity and regulation in CWS during emotionally
arousing situations.
In this article we present the results of an experiment studying the speech and non-speech (physical, psychical) appearances of stuttering teenagers and adults. Our data confirmed the necessity of the use of a non-traditional method, the dance-moving therapy, which indirectly influences the psycho and the speech appearances of the stuttering persons through the work with their own body. It also supports, activates and transforms the communicative activities of the participants.
The aim of this study was to obtain local norms on the Italian version of the Behavior Checklist (BCL) for children. The BCL (Brutten) investigates the number and type of coping behaviors used by children. This self-report test was administered to 60 stuttering children (12 girls and 48 boys) and 83 nonstuttering children (40 girls and 43 boys) between age 6 and 14. The results of this investigation confirm earlier findings that CWS use statistically significantly more speech aids compared to their nonstuttering peers.
This study presents normative data on speech rate of Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican adults without fluency disorders during three different speaking conditions: reading, conversation and monologue. Sixty, male and female, young adults, ages 21-30, participated in the study. Rate is described in SPM, WPM, SPS and WPS for both gender groups and according to speaking conditions. A comparison is presented of current speech rate measures and their applicability for use with Spanish speakers. Current results are compared with those reported for English speakers and other languages. Implications of these results for clinical intervention with people who stutter will be discussed.
This paper addresses the relationship between disfluent speech and disordered symptoms occurring beyond the language (speech rate, logophobia/anxiety, muscle co-movements) and age of people who stutter. Both quantitative and qualitative differences between three age groups (7-11; 12-16; 17+) are discussed (n=250). The findings suggest that frequencies of occurrence of disfluent speech are similar among the three groups. Blocks are most commonly occurred in initial sound and that stop-explosive consonants and vowels were most frequently blocked. Significant differences have been observed between groups in case of logophobia/anxiety level.
In Russian speech and language therapy
practice, а clinical differentiation of persons who stutter is adopted.
The purpose of this investigation was to quantitatively and qualitatively
characterize speech dysfluencies exhibited by
children with different forms of stuttering. The subjects were 11 children
between five and six and a half years of age. We used Rustin
Dysfluency Evaluation Instrument (1997). The results
show that the increase in the number of speech dysfluencies
at preschool children depends on complication of speech form. We will discuss
the essential differences in characteristics of speech dysfluencies
at children with neurotic and neurosis-like forms of stuttering.
SSMP is a comprehensive
stuttering-modification approach designed for older adolescents and adults. The
purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate feeling and attitude changes of
persons who stutter before and after this program. The subjects were 6 persons between
sixteen and forty three years old. We used before and after the treatment the following
assessment instruments: Overall Assessment of The Speaker’s Experience of
Stuttering, Communication Attitude Scale, Self-Rating of Reactions to Speech
Situations, Perceptions of Stuttering Inventory. We will give an overview of
SSMP and will discuss our findings.
As a
senior lecturer, excellent communication and fluency are taken for granted.
However in the case of an academic with a dysfluency
(covert stutterer), how one teaches (presentation)
can be more of a challenge to what is taught (content). This is not based on
the author’s own quantitative or qualitative research findings, although
current relevant research evidence will be cited. The main aim is to present a personal
perspective, on the difficulties and challenges associated with dysfluency
and academic life. The conclusions from this personal perspective,
may extend to adults with a mild stutter and will inform a future quantitative
survey of undergraduate students.
Articulation rate is a common
measure used in the evaluation of speech and fluency. The purpose of this study
was to examine differences in articulation rate in children and adolescents. One-hundred
and forty Hebrew-speaking children, age 3 to 17, were examined in two speaking
tasks: conversation and picture-description. Measurements were performed using
three metrics: word-per-minute (WPM), syllable-per-second (SPS) and
phone-per-second (PPS). In addition, diadochokinetic
(DDK) rate was evaluated. Results indicated that articulation- and DDK-rates
increased with age, but not linearly. Articulation rate was faster during
conversation than during picture-description, with no significant gender
differences. Rate measurements among the Hebrew speakers were typically higher
than those reported among English speakers.
The purpose of this
study was to compare the levels of social anxiety, public self-consciousness
and social self-efficacy among school-age stutterers
to those among non-stuttering controls. The results revealed that the level of
social self-efficacy from school-age stutterers was
significantly lower than that from non-stuttering controls, although the levels
of social anxiety and public self-consciousness from the two groups were not
significantly different. Results indicated that school-age stutterers
seem to have low self-efficacy regarding their social skills. Clinical
indications from the results will be discussed.
It is acknowledged chronic stuttering involves more than just the occurrence of dysfluent speech. A large component of the condition involves the behaviours of avoidance, word substitution and circumlocution; associated feelings of fear, frustration, shame, embarrassment; and as well attitudes of helplessness and denial. Ideas will be presented AND SOUGHT to address development and dissemination of terminology used to describe stuttering and its diagnosis. The aim of this process would be to make descriptions of stuttering more relevant to both PWS and therapists as well as providing a focus for more effective therapy and a format for improving the general understanding of the stuttering condition. All ideas are welcome.
This study assessed relations between children’s emotional reactivity, emotion regulation and stuttering using multiple measures. Participants were 36 preschool children who stutter (CWS) and 32 preschool children who do not stutter (CWNS). Parents reported on their children’s emotional reactivity and regulation via standardized questionnaires. CWS, when compared to CWNS, displayed more reactivity (i.e., higher negative affect) and were less able to effectively regulate their emotions (i.e., less inhibitory control and instrumental coping, and less effective control over emotions). Findings suggest that CWS’s relatively greater emotional reactivity and less effective emotion regulation may exacerbate/maintain difficulties these children have establishing fluent speech.
To set the best individual therapy, each client is submitted to a complex medical examination. We monitored the occurrence of heart defects in 62 stutterers (58M and 4F; aged 15 – 25). They were examined at the beginning of therapy. Systolic murmur was diagnosed in 16 clients. During laboratory examination, 61% were found to have decreased cholesterol level. They had low blood pressure and a tendency towards reduced blood pressure reactivity (handgrip examination). Higher muscle work should be taken into account when they strive for communication. Their muscle work is constant and continuous throughout their waking hours.
Listeners’ perception toward stuttering has been
considered an important factor to the diagnosis and treatment of stuttering. This study intended to examine perceptual
differences between speech clinicians and laypeople toward children and adults
with stuttering. A total of 102 subjects were surveyed. Clinicians’ perception
was more stereotypical than that of laypeople. Laypeople perceived adults and children
with no significant differences but, clinicians viewed adults more
stereotypically. Clinicians were not influenced by experiences with stuttering,
but experienced laypeople perceived children more negatively although people
who have stuttering family members showed a less stereotypical perception. Item
analysis revealed that both groups showed different perspectives between adults
and children with stuttering.
International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD), a consumer and professional alliance since 1998, has been an impetus in establishing important connections between people who stutter, their families, clinicians and researchers. This poster session will highlight several of the successful ISAD events that have taken place throughout the world, including important advances in supporting people who stutter in many countries where there had previously been no therapy or appropriate information about stuttering. It will also highlight information about a unique ISAD event, the International Stuttering Awareness Day Online Conference.
The purpose of this study was to investigate CWS’s
temperament and their mothers’ temperament and to suggest an effective intervention
for preschool children who stutter. Interviews of 13 mothers of the CWS and 5 SLPs were conducted in order to collect their opinions on
child’s temperament and mother’s temperament. Three themes and eleven
sub-themes emerged from the constant comparative analysis: (1) the temperament
characteristics of CWS and their effects, (2) the temperament characteristics
of the mothers of CWS and their effects, (3) the directions of effective
stuttering intervention. Implications for research and intervention for
children who stutter and their families are discussed.
This study reports the onset of stuttering after a car accident and discusses the nature of acquired stuttering. A 34 year-old man showed depression and moderate stuttering after a car accident but with no other neurological or cognitive problems. Six months later, he manifested little stuttering in his speech but with unnatural prosody. Another five months later, his speech became fluent again and was relatively natural with a certain Korean provincial accent. The case indicates that stuttering after car accidents may result from a psychological problem rather than a neurological problem.
North Dublin Teenage Stuttering
(NDTS) was established to provide an appropriate and accessible service for teenagers who stutter in
Cognitive Psychotherapy (CPT) will be presented
as a potential therapeutic tool in stuttering therapy. In CPT the therapist
helps the client to transform his/her symptoms into problem areas. The ultimate
goal is that the client will be able to cope with his/her problems in a more
adequate and functional way. Written
materials from therapeutic sessions with a large number of clients suffering
from stuttering problems were analysed in order to disclose important themes
and aspects of the therapeutic process. These findings suggest the potential usefulness
of CPT in the treatment of emotional and behavioural problems as an effect of
stuttering.
The realization of the informative and
contrastive focus in a small group of
Italian adult stutterers pronouncing sentences with a
SV and a VS word order is analyzed. The dysfluent
productions showed a significant statistical association of stuttering episodes
with the initial syllable of the noun (against the verb). The investigation of
the prosodic characteristics of the stutterers’
fluent speech revealed that, contrary to expectations, the word in narrow focus does not necessarily bear the
major prominence of the utterance, and the associated pitch accent showed an
earlier alignment, compared to nonstutterers’, of the
F0 peak within the stressed vowel.
This study describes the integration of fluency shaping (i.e. slower speech, light articulatory contact, and continuous phonation), stuttering modification (i.e. pullouts), parent and child counseling and parent involvement during an intensive six week summer program for school-age children who stutter. Results demonstrated increased awareness and knowledge of stuttering and use of fluency enhancing strategies for both children and their parents. Findings support previous studies that suggest using these types of approaches (i.e. fluency shaping, stuttering modification, counseling, and parent involvement) with children who stutter and their families.
Intensive fluency programmes for
8-12 year old children have run at The Apple House,
This study examines the
prevalence of cluttering in
Researchers have suggested that difficulties with word retrieval may be associated with disfluent speech (e.g., Wingate, 1988). This study assessed the word finding abilities of 20 adults who do (AWS) and do not stutter (AWNS), by administering the Test of Adult Word Finding (TAWF) and a computerized picture naming task (CPNT). Results indicated that AWS scored significantly lower than AWNS on the TAWF and also exhibited significantly slower picture naming latencies on the CPNT. Findings suggest that difficulties with retrieving the appropriate word during speech language production may be related to increases in speech disfluencies for AWS.
Speech rate has long been considered to be an important variable in the diagnosis and treatment of individuals who stutter (Conture, 2001; Gregory, 2003; Guitar, 1998; Zebrowski & Kelly, 2002). A 45-item questionnaire was developed and administered to approximately 50 speech-language pathologists to assess their knowledge of various aspects of speech rate, and how they relate to the assessment and treatment of people who stutter. Findings from this investigation will broaden our understanding of speech language pathologists’ knowledge of speech rate and stuttering, and hopefully aid in developing new and more effective training procedures for clinicians.
The
Ryan Fluency Program is an evidence-based treatment and accompanying skills
(e.g., counting stuttered words), assessment (Fluency Interview) and treatment:
Establishment (Gradual Increase in Length and Complexity of Utterance (GILCU))
transfer, and maintenance procedures. Data/evidence will be provided on using
this program in a university training center. A self-instructional package for
teachers/supervisors to use with their prospective student clinicians will be
discussed and one set of all materials will be provided free to the teachers
who agree to use them and provide feedback. Follow-up will be both expected
from teachers and offered to them throughout the year.
During a 10-year longitudinal study of 22 preschool children who stuttered, concurrent with that of Yairi and associates (1999, 2004), we first observed the children for 15 months, at 4-month intervals, without treatment or counseling, to determine the individual trends (at least 3 measures over time) for spontaneous recovery or persistence. A downward trend predicted recovery while an upward or flat trend predicted persistence. Trend inspection of one repeated test alone was 95.5% (21/22) accurate in the prediction of recovery or persistence. Individual analyses suggested problems: 33% (5) false positive and 6% (1) false negative. Solutions will be offered.
The knowledge of the speech motor system function in stuttering, as a whole with the study of the linguistic construction and the cognitive consequences, allows increasing effectiveness in treatments. Based on Hans Bosshardt’s criteria, we certainly know that we must consider, not only motor factors in stuttering, but also adequate timing on the speech planning that works together with speech production. I will present practical reflections based on wide clinical experiences, joining motor and pre-motor aspects, taking into account the Planning - Execution of speech and the modification of an adult’s interaction with his stuttering.
Clinicians and clients have claimed that attending self-help groups for people who stutter can play a major role in stuttering therapy. This study takes a retrospective view of the effectiveness of self-help group participation as a supplement to individual stuttering therapy. Comparisons were made from a mixed-methods research paradigm combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
Attitude is an important
cultural factor guiding individuals to perceive the world and act accordingly
(Watson & Kayser, 1994). Attitude changing has
its influential accountability for a successful treatment (Cole, 1989; McClure
& Yaruss, 2003). Information regarding attitude
toward stuttering has been exclusively derived from the mainstream society,
whereas very little is known for the minority communities. This study surveyed
the attitudes toward oral expression, stuttering and speech therapy among
Chinese communities across nation in the
While a
number of authors have suggested that patients with palilalia
typically show a tendency to repeat words or phrases with an increasing rate,
others maintain that an accelerating speech rate is not essential and that in
some patients the rate of delivery remains constant throughout the palilalia. The present paper reports the results of an
instrumental analysis of the durational variability in the reiterations of a
60-year-old man with palilalia. The variations in the
reiterations suggest that novel or varying motor processes are deployed to
produce the elements in a sequence rather than an invariant motor program.
West (1943)
claimed that stuttering is absent among those with diabetes, referring to “a
search of case histories of thousands of
diabetics” Others, however, did report the existence of diabetic stutterers (Boldon, 1955; Van
Riper, 1971). This paper reports a sample survey investigation of the
prevalence of stuttering in individuals with Type 1 diabetes at the
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of multisyllabic word repetitions on severity measures of speech disfluencies exhibited by monolingual Spanish-speaking children who stutter. Specifically, Stuttering Severity Instrument-3 and weighted stuttering-like disfluencies scores were determined with and without multisyllabic word repetitions. Results are discussed in terms of the cross-linguistic use of metrics to describe stuttering.
The purposes of this study are to assess the influence of linguistic complexity on fluency for young Japanese children who stutter, and to obtain useful data for planning treatment programs. The subjects were Japanese children with developmental stuttering (n=15). Speech samples were collected from responses given to several tasks and spontaneous speech in some situations (talking about a nearby situation and talking about the child’s personal experiences). In various tasks and situations, the frequency of stuttering was lower when the linguistic complexity was simpler and the utterance length was shorter.