Dichotic Ear Preferences of Stuttering Children and Adults

Abstract

39 stutterers and 39 normal speakers indicated their ear preferences for dichotically presented words and digits. A single response mode for both dichotic words and digits was selected to study speech perception. Stutterers showed significantly less of the normal right-ear preference for dichotic words and digits than non-stutterers. The proportion of stutterers who failed to demonstrate a right-ear preference for dichotic words was significantly greater than for non-stutterers. 18% of the stutterers and none of the non-stutterers showed reversed or a left-ear preference for dichotic digits. Although non-stuttering children and adults performed alike on the dichotic tasks, the right-ear dichotic-words scores of stuttering children were significantly smaller than those of adult stutterers. The results are related to an early notion that stuttering may be related to mixed dominance and recent evidence showing that large percentages of older stuttering children show spontaneous remission of stuttering.

Subtyping stuttering I: A review

“…A few years later, data obtained from other dichotic listening experiments, e.g., Sommers, Brady, & Moore (1975), showed a large percentage of stutterers to exhibit a reversal of the typical right ear preference. The investigators stated that ".…”

Asymmetries in mouth opening during word generation in male stuttering and non-stuttering participants

“…A range of behavioural methods have been used to infer hemispheric activity in people who stutter in response to auditory and visual stimuli; for example, dichotic listening (Blood, 1985;Curry & Gregory, 1969;Rosenfield & Goodglass, 1980;Sommers, Brady, & Moore, 1975; see Code, 1998a, for review) and tachistoscopic viewing (Hand & Haynes, 1983;Moore, 1976;Szelag, Garwarska-Kolek, Herman, & Stasiek, 1993). More recently a range of neural imaging studies have been conducted using Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Single-Positron Emission Computerised Tomography (SPECT), and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to examine activation in the brains of people who stutter (Ingham, 2001;Ingham et al, 1996;Ingham, Ingham, Finn, & Fox, 2003;Pool, Devous, Freeman, Watson, & Finitzo, 1991;Watson, Freeman, Devous, Chapman, Finitzo, & Pool, 1994).…”

Stuttering: A Contemporary Perspective

“…Stut terers demonstrated their largest ear prefer ence on the two-syllable word test and the rhyming word task and it was a left ear pref erence. Sommers et al [1975] compared three dif ferent age-groups of children and adult non stutterers and stutterers on word pairs and digit pairs presented dichoticallv. They found that stutterers showed significantly less of the normal right ear preference for dichotic words and digits than the nonstutterers.…”