Sentence position and syntactic complexity of stuttering in early childhood: A longitudinal study

Abstract

The purpose of the present investigation was to assess longitudinal word-and sentence-level measures of stuttering in young children. Participants included 12 stuttering and non-stuttering children between 36 and 71 months of age at an initial who exhibited a range of stuttering rates. Parent-child spontaneous speech samples were obtained over a period of two years at six-month intervals. Each speech sample was transcribed, and both stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) and other disfluencies (ODs) were coded. Word and sentence-level measures of SLDs were used to assess linguistic characteristics of stuttering. Results of the word-level analysis indicated that stuttering was most likely to occur at the sentence-initial position, but that a tendency to stutter on function words was present only at the sentence-initial position. Results of the sentence-level analyses indicated that sentences containing ODs and those containing SLDs were both significantly longer and more complex than fluent sentences, but did not differ from each other. Word-and sentence-level measures also did not change across visits. Results were taken to suggest that both SLDs and ODs originate during the same stage of sentence planning.

An Investigation into the Difference in Word Class and the Function of Repetition in Stuttering Persian Speaking Children

“…First of all, we think that since as the previously conducted studies showed, children who stuttered and those who do not tended to produce their repetitions at the very beginning of their utterances [20]. Moreover, we also proposed that since the development of language skills are a dynamic process, the participants of this study might produce a higher number of part-word repetitions due to the increment of their language production skill.…”

“…The previously conducted research showed that children who stutter and those who do not, tended to produce repetitions at the beginning of their speech productions [13,20]. That said, we can argue that the higher tendency of both groups in producing part-word repetition might be due to the position of the words.…”

“…Studies [19] show that although through the comparison of traditional models we may predict that the phonological problems are manifested through content words, children have the tendency to stutter on the function words. Moreover, Buhr and Zebrowski [20] believe that children stutter on the beginning position of function words. When addressing function words and content words with the type of repetition including whole-word repetitions and part-word repetitions, the case will be more intriguing.…”

Phonological complexity in school-aged children who stutter and exhibit a language disorder

“…Researchers have explored the linguistic factors that may affect or in some way be related to dysfluency. These include, but are not limited to the length of utterance, utterance position, within-word position and function versus content words (Au-Yeung, Howell, & Pilgrim 1998;Buhr & Zebrowski, 2009;Coalson, Byrd, & Davis, 2012;Gaines, Runyan, & Meyers, 1991;MacPherson & Smith, 2013;Natke, Sandrieser, van Ark, Pietrowsky, & Kalveram, 2004;Richels, Buhr, Conture, & Ntourou, 2010;Soderberg, 1967;Yaruss, 1999). Nippold (2002) has questioned if there is an interaction between stuttering and phonology or simply a co-occurrence with confounding factors.…”

Speech-Language Dissociations, Distractibility, and Childhood Stuttering

“…For example, children who stutter (CWS) tend to stutter on longer, more syntactically complex utterances (e.g., Buhr & Zebrowski, 2009;Howell & Au-Yeung, 1995;Logan & Conture, 1995Melnick & Conture, 2000;Richels et al, 2010;Sawyer, Chon, & Ambrose, 2008;Yaruss, 1999;Zackheim & Conture, 2003). In addition, stuttering tends to increase "on function words [at the utterance-initial position] .…”