Asperger Syndrome and Attention Deficit Disorder: Clinical Disfluency Analysis

John Tetnowski, Kathy Scaler Scott, Heather Grossman, Kathleen Abendroth and Jack S. Damico

There are many conditions that produce disfluent speech. Although stuttering is the most common, other types of fluency disruptions and breakdowns occur that are associated with various conditions. This report describes the different types of nonfluencies that occur with three different participants. Each of the participants has been noted to have a “fluency disorder” by family members and a speech-language pathologist. In addition, each of the clients carries a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome and/or ADD. Results reveal three distinctly different disfluency profiles. Two of these profiles show behaviors that are not typically present in “typical” stuttering clients.