A Longitudinal Investigation of Speaking Rate in Preschool Children Who Stutter

Abstract

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.

Articulation Rate and Speech-Sound Normalization Failure

“…This finding held when rate was measured in either syllables per second or phones per second. Analysis by Flipsen also indicated that the rate values obtained at initial and follow-up testing overall were consistent with findings from cross-sectional studies of typically developing children when measured in syllables per second (Amster, 1984;Hall, Amir, & Yairi, 1999;Haselager, Slis, & Rietveld, 1991;Kowal, O'Connell, & Sabin, 1975;Pindzola, Jenkins, & Lokken, 1989;Walker, Archibald, Cherniak, & Fish, 1992). Relative to the phones per second measure, comparisons for the initial testing data indicated slower articulation rates being produced by the current study participants; no direct comparisons were possible for the follow-up data.…”

“…No studies could be identified that have addressed this question. In an analogous study of preschool children who stutter, Hall et al (1999) compared articulation rate data obtained longitudinally from 8 children whose stuttering had recovered against comparable data obtained from 8 children whose stuttering persisted and from a group of 8 typically developing children. The groups did not differ significantly on articulation rate at any of the three test times reported (initial visit, 1 year follow-up, 2 year follow-up) when rate was measured in syllables per second.…”

Influences of rate, length, and complexity on speech disfluency in a single-speech sample in preschool children who stutter

“…What is measured may also make a difference. One longitudinal study examined speech rates in children whose stuttering would persist over time, in those whose stuttering would remit, and in normally fluent children (Hall, Amir, & Yairi, 1999). Looking at perceptually fluent utterances, Hall and colleagues found no significant differences in the three groups over time in terms of articulation rate measured in syllables per second.…”

“…Therefore, the articulation rate of the sample utterance was 3.5487 syllables per second (overall duration of perceptually fluent speech (2.53615 sec) ÷ number of syllables (9) = 3.5487 SPS). Simultalk, unintelligible talk, or utterances less than three consecutive words were excluded (Hall, Amir, & Yairi, 1999;Logan & Conture, 1995;Yaruss, 1997;Yaruss & Conture, 1995). The mean number of utterances analyzed for each child was 33.5 (SD = 4.03) for Section A, and 33.79 (SD = 7.44) for Section B, and overall, 942 utterances (508 perceptually fluent utterances, 328 utterances including stuttering-like disfluencies, and 106 utterances including other disfluencies) were analyzed for the articulation rate.…”

“…Articulation rate-Articulation rate was defined as the number of perceptually fluent syllables in each utterance divided by the duration (in seconds) of the utterance removing all instances of stuttering-like disfluencies, other disfluencies (interjection, revision/abandoned utterances, multisyllable/phrase repetition), and pauses greater than 250 milliseconds (ms) (Chon, Ko, & Shin, 2004;Hall, Amir, & Yairi, 1999;Miller, Grosjean, & Lomanto, 1984;Walker, Archibald, Cherniak, & Fish, 1992;Yaruss, 1997). The participants' speech was captured and analyzed using the Computerized Speech Lab (CSL), model 4500 by Kay Elemetrics.…”