Speech disfluencies of preschool-age children who do and do not stutter

Abstract

Purpose-The goals of the present study were to investigate whether (1) the speech disfluencies of preschool-age children are normally distributed; (2) preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) differ in terms of non-stuttered disfluencies; (3) age, gender, and speechlanguage ability affect the number and type of disfluencies children produce; and (4) parents' expressed concern that their child stutters is associated with examiners' judgments of stuttered disfluency.Method-Four hundred and seventy two children participated, of which 228 were CWS (56 girls), and 244 CWNS (119 girls). Participants provided conversational speech samples that were analyzed for frequency of occurrence of (a) stuttered disfluencies, (b) non-stuttered disfluencies, and (c) total disfluencies.Results-Results indicated that the underlying distributions of preschool-age children's stuttered and non-stuttered disfluency counts followed a negative binomial distribution (i.e., were not normal), with more children "piling up" at the low end [none or few disfluencies] and fewer children scoring in the upper [more severe stuttering] end of the distribution. Findings also indicated that non-stuttered disfluencies significantly predicted CWS/CWNS talker group classification, information that may be helpful to augment, but not supplant, talker group classification criteria based on stuttered disfluencies. Moreover, expressed parental concern about stuttering was strongly associated with frequency of stuttered disfluencies. Conclusion-Findings suggest that the entirety of preschool-age CWS' speech disfluenciesnon-stuttered as well as stuttered -differs from that of their CWNS peers and that because these disfluencies are not normally distributed statistical analyses assuming normality of distribution are not the most appropriate means to assess these differences. In addition, certain "third-order" variables (e.g., gender) appear to impact frequency of children's disfluencies and expressed parental concerns about stuttering are meaningfully related to examiners' judgments of stuttered disfluencies.Learning outcomes-The reader will learn about differences in speech disfluencies of preschool-age children who do and do not stutter. The reader will learn whether age, gender and speech-language ability affect the number and type of disfluencies children produce. The reader will learn whether parental concern about stuttering is associated with examiners' judgments of stuttering.

Beyond stuttering: Speech disfluencies in normally fluent French-speaking children at age 4

“…Applying a criterion of 3% SLD resulted in high degrees of sensitivity and specificity in young English-speaking children (Ambrose & Yairi, 1999;Pellowski & Conture, 2002;Tumanova et al, 2014), Dutch-Speaking children (Boey et al, 2007), and German-speaking children (Natke et al, 2006). This criterion is also in line with parental concern about their children's stuttering (Tumanova et al, 2014).…”

“…Tumanova et al (2014) have shown a very strong discriminatory ability at the threshold of eight disfluencies per 100 words, while Guitar (2013) uses a criterion of no more than 10 disfluencies per 100 words for a normally fluent child. Describing all the disfluencies observed in the speech of young French-speaking children could help improve understanding of the disfluencies to expect in children who do not stutter.…”

Speech-Language Dissociations, Distractibility, and Childhood Stuttering

“…11 GLM was chosen because the present study's speech disfluency data followed a negative binomial distribution (similar to Clark et al, 2013, andLambert, 2014).…”

Prolongamentos na fala de adultos com e sem gagueira

“…One of the neurological characteristics of developmental stuttering is the abnormal motor preparation of speech 9 . For proper diagnosis of stuttering, the characterization of disfluencies in speech is fundamental 10 , given that the main manifestation of this disorder is the excessive presence of stuttering-like disfluencies [11][12][13][14] . In addition, knowledge of the stuttering-like disfluency types contributes to define cases of recovered or persistent stuttering in preschool children 15 .…”