Stuttering inhibition via visual feedback at normal and fast speech rates

Abstract

The current findings demonstrate the capabilities of visual speech feedback signals to reduce stuttering frequency that is independent of the speaker's rate of speech. Possible strategies are suggested to transfer these findings into naturalistic and clinical settings, though further research is warranted.

Overcoming Stuttering Using Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF): A Case Study

“…According to Fujisaki (2012) delayed visual feedback is found to be effective on grooved pegboard test performance which supports the notion that two mechanisms (temporal as well as spatial displacements between motor and sensory feedback) operate under such techniques. What makes such techniques like DAF very important is that the signals it produces help stutterer to reduce his/ her stuttering frequency that is independent of the speaker's rate of speech (Hudock et al, 2011). Testing stuttering in gender, Swink (2012)'s outcomes confirm the notion that speech production suppresses auditory cortex responsiveness and males and females process altered auditory feedback differently while speaking.…”

The role of temporal speech cues in facilitating the fluency of adults who stutter

“…The effects of choral speech signal manipulation on fluency enhancement have been examined in a range of studies (e.g., Barber, 1939;Guntupalli et al, 2005;Guntupalli, Nanjundeswaran, Kalinowski, & Dayalu, 2011;Hudock, Dayalu, Saltuklaroglu, Stuart, Zhang, & Kalinowski, 2011;Kiefte & Armson, 2008;Rami et al, 2005). Research findings suggest that fluency facilitation occurs even when the choral speech signal is mismatched with what the speaker is saying (see Barber, 1939;Cherry & Sayers, 1956, for early A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t…”

“…Further, fluency enhancement also occurs when speakers who stutter are provided with only visual images of targeted articulatory movements, and fluency is enhanced further when the visual images lag the speaker's articulation in a manner analogous to delayed auditory feedback (Hudock et al, 2011). Rami et al (2005) hypothesized that choral speech aids in the recovery of gestural (i.e., articulatory) information that pertains to a target utterance and that recovery of gestural information would be affected by the rate at which gestural cues are presented to speaker.…”

“…Consequently, temporal information within the choral signal was, to some extent, dissociated from the signal's syntactic structure and, consequently, its expected prosodic structure. It was thought that this manipulation would reduce moment-to-moment predictability about the temporal structure of an utterance and might lead to less fluency facilitation for speakers who stutter in comparison to conditions in which speakers were exposed to unaltered, temporally-faithful choral signals (see Barber, 1939, andHudock et al, 2011 for discussion of this issue). The present study also incorporated multi-speaker conversational babble as another type of temporally unpredictable choral signal.…”

Immediate effect of delayed auditory feedback on stuttering-like disfluencies

“…When a sudden irregularity occurs in a specific acoustic parameter of auditory feedback, fluent speakers are able to correct the mistake in their oral production instantaneously 9 , while persons who stutter have shown weaker than normal compensation when experiencing these occurrences 9,12 . These findings indicate that persons who stutter are not able to compare audibly desired speech movements to real movements as well as fluent speakers do 13,14 .…”