The current study investigated whether phonetic complexity affected stuttering rate in Jordanian Arabic speakers. Speakers were assigned to three age groups (6-11, 12-17 and 18+ years). An Arabic index of phonetic complexity (AIPC) was developed. Each word was given a score based on the number of complex phonetic properties out of a total of nine that it contained in the AIPC. The results showed that stuttering on function words for Jordanian Arabic did not correlate significantly with the AIPC score for any age group. The AIPC scores of content and function-content words correlated positively with stuttering rate for the 6-11 age group alone with the function-content words affecting fluency more severely than did the content words. The AIPC scores of stuttered function, content and stuttered function-content words were higher than those of fluent words. The non-stuttered words had lower AIPC scores than the stuttered corresponding classes. This showed that the higher the AIPC score on stuttered words, the greater the chance for these word categories to be stuttered. The AIPC factors that most affected fluency in Jordanian Arabic were place of articulation, manner of articulation, word length, word shape and consonant length. We conclude that Arabic is similar to other languages with regard to the loci of stuttering, their phonetic complexity and AIPC factors affecting stuttering most. The correlation between phonetic complexity and the order of the AIPC factors are different between Arabic and other languages.
The controlled and free speech of 15 Jordanian male and female children with cleft lip and/or palate was analyzed to account for the different phonological processes exhibited. Study participants were divided into three main age groups, 4 years 2 months to 4 years 7 months, 5 years 3 months to 5 years 6 months, and 6 years 4 months to 6 years 6 months, with bilateral or unilateral cleft lip and/or palate. Based on a productivity scale of a 20% or higher occurrence, results indicated the use of five productive processes: consonants backing, lateralization, depharyngealization, stopping, and final consonant deletion. Other phonological processes—for example, strident deletion, consonant harmony, fronting, syllable reduction, devoicing, liquid gliding, and deaffrication—did not reach the 20% or higher productivity scale. Age correlated significantly with the phonological processes, with the youngest group exhibiting these processes more than the other two groups did. There was no significant correlation between gender and phonological processes usage.
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