No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Speech-language pathologists are in need of useful assessment instruments which differentiate early stuttering behaviors and will enable them to identify preschool children who need immediate intervention for stuttering. Furthermore, useful assessment tools are needed especially due to the variability across studies of normal disfluency and lack of reliability information on more formal measures of differential evaluation of normal disfluency and incipient stuttering.

Darbe atlikta teorinė mikčiojimo įvertinimo ir mikčiojančių moksleivių nerimo faktorių analizė. / This research which is presented in master’s work had a goal to analyze theoretically the as-sessment of stuttering and stuttering pupils’ anxiety factors.

The inhibitory effects of continuously presented audio signals (/a/, /s/, 1,000 Hz pure-tone) on stuttering were examined. Eleven adults who stutter participated. Participants read four 300-syllable passages (i.e. in the presence and absence of the audio signals). All of the audio signals induced a significant reduction in stuttering frequency relative to the control condition (P = 0.005). A significantly greater reduction in stuttering occurred in the /a/ condition (P < 0.05), while there was no significant difference between the /s/ and 1,000 Hz pure-tone conditions (P > 0.05). These findings are consistent with the notion that the percept of a second signal as speech or non-speech can respectively augment or attenuate the potency for reducing stuttering frequency.

Background: People who stutter produce speech that is characterized by intermittent, involuntary part-word repetitions and prolongations. In addition to these signature acoustic manifestations, those who stutter often display repetitive and fixated behaviours outside the speech producing mechanism (e.g. in the head, arm, fingers, nares, etc.). Previous research has examined the attitudes and perceptions of those who stutter and people who frequently interact with them (e.g. relatives, parents, employers). Results have shown an unequivocal, powerful and robust negative stereotype despite a lack of defined differences in personality structure between people who stutter and normally fluent individuals. However, physiological investigations of listener responses during moments of stuttering are limited. There is a need for data that simultaneously examine physiological responses (e.g. heart rate and galvanic skin conductance) and subjective behavioural responses to stuttering. The pairing of these objective and subjective data may provide information that casts light on the genesis of negative stereotypes associated with stuttering, the development of compensatory mechanisms in those who stutter, and the true impact of stuttering on senders and receivers alike. Aims: To compare the emotional and physiological responses of fluent speakers while listening and observing fluent and severe stuttered speech samples. Methods & Procedures: Twenty adult participants (mean age = 24.15 years, standard deviation = 3.40) observed speech samples of two fluent speakers and two speakers who stutter reading aloud. Participants' skin conductance and heart rate changes were measured as physiological responses to stuttered or fluent speech samples. Participants' subjective responses on arousal (excited-calm) and valence (happy-unhappy) dimensions were assessed via the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) rating scale with an additional questionnaire comprised of a set of nine bipolar adjectives. Outcomes & Results: Results showed significantly increased skin conductance and lower mean heart rate during the presentation of stuttered speech relative to the presentation of fluent speech samples (p<0.05). Listeners also self-rated themselves as being more aroused, unhappy, nervous, uncomfortable, sad, tensed, unpleasant, avoiding, embarrassed, and annoyed while viewing stuttered speech relative to the fluent speech. Conclusions: These data support the notion that stutter-filled speech can elicit physiological and emotional responses in listeners. Clinicians who treat stuttering should be aware that listeners show involuntary physiological responses to moderate-severe stuttering that probably remain salient over time and contribute to the evolution of negative stereotypes of people who stutter. With this in mind, it is hoped that clinicians can work with people who stutter to develop appropriate coping strategies. The role of amygdala and mirror neural mechanism in physiological and subjective responses to stuttering is discussed.

Det har tidigare rapporterats att icke-stammande personer har en tydlig vänstersidig cerebral lateralisering vad gäller talmotoriken, vilket visas genom ökad högersidig aktivering i läppmuskulaturen. Personer med stamning har å andra sidan föreslagits ha ett vänstersidigt eller bilateralt aktiveringsmönster av talmuskulaturen. Detta antas vara en av orsakerna till stamning. Testdeltagarna i aktuell studie bestod av 11 stammande och 13 matchade icke-stammande vuxna. Uppgifterna bestod av ordrepetition, ordgenerering samt att puta med läpparna. EMG-aktivitet från musklerna orbicularis oris och depressor labii inferior registrerades med elektroder på höger och vänster sida av läppmuskulaturen. Syftet med aktuell studie var att undersöka eventuell skillnad i läppasymmetri mellan stammande och icke-stammande vuxna personer. Resultatet kunde inte påvisa signifikanta gruppskillnader i grad av muskelaktivering för läppmuskulaturen. Båda grupperna uppvisade tvärtemot förväntan en nästintill bilateral aktivitet. En tendens till positiv korrelation, om än inte statistiskt signifikant, kunde observeras mellan grad av uppvisad stamning och något mer högersidig muskelaktivering.

Intervals of specified fluent verbal behavior of two stutterers received response-contingent positive stimulation in the form of an accumulating points system, Assessment was made o the effect of experimental manipulation on the frequency of fluent speech intervals as well as on the frequency of subject-identified stuttering behaviors observed during the experimental session. The results indicated significant change in fluent interval frequency in the spontaneous speech of one subject. Effect of the experimental contingency was not demonstrated in the oral reading of a second subject. Stuttering. behavior data indicated that an indirect effect of the positive stimulation can change the frequency of behavior not being contingently stimulated.