Purpose: To refute the alleged practice of "pseudoscience" by P. Finn, A. K. Bothe, and R. E. Bramlett (2005) and to illustrate their experimental and systematic bias when evaluating the SpeechEasy, an altered auditory feedback device used in the management of stuttering. Method: We challenged the experimental design that led to the seemingly predetermined outcome of pseudoscience rather than science: Limited preselected literature was submitted to a purposely sampled panel of judges (i.e., their own students). Each criterion deemed pseudoscientific was contested with published peer-reviewed data illustrating the importance of good rhetoric, testability, and logical outcomes from decades of scientific research. Conclusions: Stuttering is an involuntary disorder that is highly resistant to therapy. Altered auditory feedback is a derivation of choral speech (nature's most powerful stuttering "inhibitor") that can be synergistically combined with other methods for optimal stuttering inhibition. This approach is logical considering that in stuttering no single treatment is universally helpful. Also, caution is suggested when attempting to differentiate science from pseudoscience in stuttering treatments using the criteria employed by Finn et al. For example, evaluating behavioral therapy outcomes implements a post hoc or untestable system. Speech outcome (i.e., stuttered or fluent speech) determines success or failure of technique use, placing responsibility for failure on those who stutter.

The current study examined the effect of different rate change approaches on speech movement patterns, including increasing and decreasing speaking rate volitionally, as well as with delayed auditory feedback (DAF). There were 10 participants, five male and five female, with a mean age of 25 years. All were typical speakers. Participants spoke the sentence “Don’t fight or pout over a toy car” under slow, fast and DAF speaking conditions. A total of 5 sensors were glued to each participant’s tongue, teeth, and lips. NDI Wave electromagnetic articulography recorded the articulatory movements from these sensors as the participants spoke. Metrics for the individual movement strokes, or articulatory gestures, were calculated based on the movement speed of the articulators during the target utterance. Ten tokens of the target utterance were analyzed for stroke count, stroke speed, duration, and hull area. Vertical movements of the tongue, jaw, lips, and lip aperture were used to calculate the spatiotemporal index to assess variability in speech movements across 10 sentence repetitions. Statistical analysis revealed that articulatory patterns changed significantly in slower speech. A speaker’s efforts to naturally decrease speech rate affected articulation patterns more than did the fast and DAF conditions. Findings from this study can be used as a foundation for future studies with dysarthric individuals, which may increase our understanding of mechanisms of change in the remediation of disordered speech.

This study examined the brain electrical activity of normal speakers in a non-delayed auditory feedback (DAF) condition and when experiencing DAF to determine the effect DAF would have on the Bereitschaftspotential (BP). The BP reflects the preparatory state of a person prior to motor execution of an act and can be observed 1500 to 500 ms prior to voluntary movement. The participants in the study included 10 adults with normal speech. Each read a series of 30 sentences, both without DAF and with DAF, while the BP was measured. Results indicate that the BP is present across the scalp in both the control condition and the DAF condition; however, the BP is reduced in the DAF condition. The scalp distribution maps indicate an increased negativity in the left frontal lobe in the DAF condition. These findings suggest that while the brain is engaged in processing current information that has already been initiated, the motor system may not be able to be primed for the next sequential motor event. There is still a need for more research to explore the motor control of speech and the ways altered feedback may disrupt the speech motor control.

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Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) is known to produce speech disruptions in fluent speakers. The present study examined the relationship between individuals' susceptibility to DAF and their auditory processing skills. Forty participants (20 males and 20 females) read and produced monologue at no delay and 3 different delay levels of 100, 200, and 400 ms. Auditory processing skills were evaluated using dichotic digits test (DDT) and staggered spondaic word (SSW) test. Males produced significantly more Stuttering-Like Disfluencies (SLDs) under DAF than females. Significantly more SLDs were observed during conversation compared to reading. Overall, there was significant correlation between the frequency of SLDs and auditory performance on SSW test. Females scored significantly better on both SSW test and DDT compared to males. Scores on attention regulation questionnaire were not significantly different between genders. Fewer SLDs observed in females under DAF could be attributed to their superior control of auditory processing resources compared to males.