Both clinical and theoretical interest in stuttering as a disorder of speech motor control has led to numerous investigations of speaking rate in people who stutter. The majority of these studies, however, has been conducted with adult and school-age groups. Most studies of preschoolers have included older children. Despite the ongoing theoretical and clinical focus on speaking rate in young children who stutter and their parents, no longitudinal or cross-sectional studies have been conducted to answer questions about the possible developmental link between stuttering and the rate of speech, or about differences in rate development between preschool children who stutter and normally fluent children. This investigation compared changes in articulatory rate over a period of 2 years in subgroups of preschool-age children who stutter and normally fluent children. Within the group of stuttering children, comparisons also were made between those who exhibited persistent stuttering and those who eventually recovered without intervention. Furthermore, the study compared two metrics of articulatory rate. Spontaneous speech samples, collected longitudinally over a 2-year period, were analyzed acoustically to determine speaking rate measured in number of syllables and phones per second. Results indicated no differences among the 3 groups when articulation rate was measured in syllables per second. Using the phones per second measure, however, significant group differences were found when comparing the control group to the recovered and persistent groups.
This investigation examined acoustic correlates of phonatory control in the speech of 10 preschool-aged boys who were stutterers (mean age= 45 months) recorded relatively close to the time of stuttering onset and in the speech of 10 boys who were nonstutterers (mean age= 46 months). For each subject, acoustic measurements of fundamental frequency, jitter, and shimmer were extracted from the 100 msec midportion of 30 vowels selected from fluent utterances in spontaneous speech. Significant differences between the two groups for shimmer measures are among the few positive findings in recent publications concerning the fluent speech of children who stutter.
The purpose of this investigation was to identify variations over time in phonatory function of women with and without vocal nodules using acoustic and electroglottographic measures. Subjects were 10 women with vocal nodules (mean age=22.1, range=19–25) and 10 women with healthy larynges (mean age=25.0, range=18–32). Electroglottographic and audio recordings of speech were obtained for each subject over 3 consecutive days at three target times: morning, afternoon, and evening. Estimates of fundamental frequency (Hz), jitter (msec), shimmer (dB), and signal-to-noise ratio (dB) were made from a 1000 msec midportion of the vowel /α/ produced in a carrier phrase. In addition, a closed-to-open ratio was derived from the EGG duty cycle of the same 1000 msec segment and used to estimate timing characteristics of vocal fold vibration. The results showed no significant differences between the groups regarding a pattern of change in the acoustic or the EGG measures across times throughout the day. Furthermore, the experimental group demonstrated significantly lower closed-to-open ratios than the control group. With this exception, no other statistically significant differences between the groups were found.
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