Keynote Address

Physiological Indices of Speech and Language Processes: New Windows on the Onset of Stuttering in Young Children

Anne Smith

All individuals who stutter experience breakdowns in the motor processes that are necessary for fluent speech production. Like most current theoretical views of stuttering, our model posits that these disruptions in motor control for speech arise from multiple etiological factors, including genetic substrates, language factors, emotional responses, cognitive load, and motor processes. Studies of adults who have been stuttering for many years reveal atypical findings at many different levels, ranging from differences in motor processes during speech to differences in evoked responses of the brain to linguistic stimuli, even in the absence of any requirement to speak. From a review of the impressive experimental findings in adults who stutter, one immediately begins to wonder when these differences in brain organization and function appear. Are they precursors to stuttering that are already evident in 2 and 3-year-olds who will become persistent developmental stutterers? Can physiological measures be used to develop better predictors about the likelihood of a chronic problem in youngster who begins to stutter? This presentation will explore these topics and present new findings from our research project on the physiological aspects of young children’s speech production and language processing.