Children who stutter exchange linguistic accuracy for processing speed in sentence comprehension

Abstract

Comprehension of predicates and reflexives was examined in children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) who were between 9 years, 7 months and 10 years, 2 months. Demands on working memory and manual reaction time were also assessed in two experiments that employed a four-choice picture-selection sentence comprehension task. CWS were less accurate than CWNS on the attachment of predicates. For reflexives, there was no between-group difference in accuracy, but there was a difference in speed. The two constructions induced processing at different points on a speed–accuracy continuum with CWS sacrificing accuracy to respond fast with predicates, while they maintained accuracy of reflexives by responding slower relative to CWNS. Predicates made more demands on language than nonspeech motor reaction time, whereas the reverse was the case with reflexives for CWS compared to CWNS.

Are prosodic effects on sentence comprehension dependent on age?

“…Eight filler sentences contained a predicate attachment, like in (c), and eight contained a reflexive assignment, like in (d). These filler sentences were previously used in studies that did not investigate prosody (19,(23)(24)(25) . New recordings of the original sentences were made, focusing on stress manipulations.…”

Audacity and Praat as Pedagogical Tools: Analysing Fluency and Pronunciation Accuracy

“…Determining the CAF levels of a production depends on at least two elements: the task to be developed and the level of language proficiency of the performer. Apart from these, the level of accuracy might be influenced by the socio-educational context of the speaker, whereas the level of fluency might be affected by the speaker's personality, such as the degrees of self-confidence and extroversion (MacIntyre et al 1998;Arnold 1999), as well as by personal traits such as speech impairments, like stuttering (Fortunato-Tavares et al 2017).…”

Prosodic Boundary Effects on Syntactic Disambiguation in Children With Cochlear Implants

“…These filler sentences were previously used in studies that did not investigate prosody (Fortunato-Tavares et al, 2012Fortunato-Tavares, Howell, Schwartz, & de Andrade, 2017). New recordings of the original sentences were made, focusing on stress manipulations.…”