Evidence for a rhythm perception deficit in children who stutter

Abstract

Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the timing and rhythmic flow of speech production. When speech is synchronized with an external rhythmic pacing signal (e.g., a metronome), even severe stuttering can be markedly alleviated, suggesting that people who stutter may have difficulty generating an internal rhythm to pace their speech. To investigate this possibility, children who stutter and typically-developing children (n = 17 per group, aged 6–11 years) were compared in terms of their auditory rhythm discrimination abilities of simple and complex rhythms. Children who stutter showed worse rhythm discrimination than typically-developing children. These findings provide the first evidence of impaired rhythm perception in children who stutter, supporting the conclusion that developmental stuttering may be associated with a deficit in rhythm processing.

Adults who stutter and metronome synchronization: evidence for a nonspeech timing deficit

“…Finally, we observed a trend for AS to have lower scores on the music perception task, which is further evidence of perceptual differences between individuals who stutter and their fluent peers . This was true despite the fact that both groups had similar amounts of music training, and that scores on this task were relatively high.…”

“…Thus, it has been suggested that stuttering behavior may be related to a timing deficit that is sensorimotor in nature . Coupled with this are studies showing deficits in rhythm perception and motor sequence learning, leading to the idea that this sensorimotor timing deficit may extend to nonspeech . A number of studies over the years have attempted to demonstrate this by examining nonspeech timing with metronome synchronization in people who stutter.…”

Temporal variability in sung productions of adolescents who stutter

“…Jungblut et al (2014), studying apraxia of speech in aphasic patients, have put forward the idea that singing may enhance and reeducate speech motor capacities, in particular temporal planning, programming and sequencing of speech movements via its rhythmic structure. Following this idea, the present study investigates temporal aspects of articulation in singing and perceptually fluent speech in stuttering, a speech fluency disorder that is characterized by deficits in speech motor control (e.g., Civier, Tasko,[ 6 4 _ T D $ D I F F ] & Guenther, 2010; Ludlow & Loucks, 2003;Namasivayam & van Lieshout, 2011;Zimmermann, 1980), but also potential deficits in temporal processing (Alm, 2004;Etchell, Johnson, & Sowman, 2014;Etchell, Ryan, Martin, Johnson, & Sowman, 2016;Falk, Müller, & Dalla Bella, 2015;Van Riper, 1982;Wieland, McAuley, Dilley, & Chang, 2015).…”

Neural Entrainment and Sensorimotor Synchronization to the Beat in Children with Developmental Dyslexia: An EEG Study

“…As impairments in both rhythm perception and the precision of beat synchronization are found in a range of developmental disorders of language, including stuttering (Falk et al, 2015; Wieland et al, 2015) and speech and language impairment (Corriveau and Goswami, 2009; Cumming et al, 2015) as well as developmental dyslexia, it is of theoretical interest to ascertain the sensory and/or motor sources of impaired sensorimotor synchronization in children with different disorders. The identification of underlying neural mechanisms would help to optimize remediation.…”