This study involved trialing an operant conditioning procedure known as time-out, as a treatment for adolescents and adults who stutter. Time-out requires individuals to pause briefly after stuttering and to resume talking after a pause in this case, of five seconds. A randomised control group design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of time-out treatment. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to either a time-out treatment or control group. The results demonstrated that individuals who stutter are highly responsive to time-out treatment. The impact of the severity of the stutter, a person's age, previous treatment, and the nature of the stutter on treatment outcome, were also investigated. Baseline severity was a strong predictor of treatment outcome, and to a lesser degree, previous treatment and speech rate were found to share some influence over treatment success. In addition, there was an unexpected change in the stuttering topography over the experiment conditions.

Research has shown that when a person who stutters self-discloses to a listener that he or she is a stutterer, this self-disclosure may positively impact the listeners' perceptions of the stuttering speaker. However, findings from previous studies have been limited in several ways. The purpose of this study was to further examine if listeners' perceptions of a stuttering speaker vary depending on whether or not the speaker self-discloses that they stutter, and if listener perceptions are subject to gender bias. We addressed limitations of prior studies by utilizing both male and female stuttering speakers who spoke directly to the viewer of the video, by balancing combinations of video viewings to account for potential effects of order, and by attempting to recruit a larger number of subjects. Participants (n =27) were randomly assigned to view two of the four possible videos (male self-disclosure, male no self-disclosure, female self-disclosure, and female no self-disclosure). After viewing both videos, participants immediately filled out a survey assessing their perceptions of the speakers' personality traits. Results for effects of self-disclosure achieved significance for "no difference" for traits of more intelligent, more unintelligent, and more unfriendly. These non-significant trends suggest self-disclosure might positively affect listener perceptions of a stuttering speaker, Results for effects of gender achieved significance for "no difference" for traits of more intelligent, more unintelligent, and more confident. In summary, results from this study show potential emerging trends that self-disclosure positively affects listeners' perceptions of stuttering speakers. / text

In an effort to improve understanding of the role that support groups such as the National Stuttering Association (NSA) play in helping people who stutter, speech-language pathologists who participate in the NSA were asked to participate in a research survey. Previous research and anecdotal evidence has shown that support groups not only benefit people who stutter, but also the professionals who work with them. Participation in the NSA can enhance SLPs' understanding of stuttering, and their comfort level and competence working with people who stutter. However, the relationship between support groups and professionals has not been adequately studied. / text

Stuttering has been defined as an atypical disruption in the forward flow of speech (Conture, 2001). The onset of stuttering is reported to be 2 to 3 years of age; the age at which the child is first learning to communicate more frequently with words rather than nonverbal behaviors. Interestingly, this is also the time at which children seek interactions with others rather than the former tendency to play independently. Because of the overt nature of this disorder, the timing of the onset and its co-occurrence with significant social developmental shifts, stuttering has the potential to impact the child’s ability to make and maintain friendships. The purpose of this report is to investigate the impact of stuttering awareness on the friendship preferences of preschool children who stutter. / text

Central auditory processing performance of male and female stutterers and nonstutterers was compared on a battery of central auditory tests. Thirty stutterers (15 male and 15 female) with a mean age of 23.10 years (17.2-31 years) comprised the experimental group, and 30 nonstutterers (15 male and 15 female) with a mean age of 22.2 years(17-32 years) comprised the control group. The test battery included dichotic (DCV test, ssw test, eST) and monotic (SSI-ICM test, ARLT) tests. Stutterers performed significantly poorer than nonstutterers on various parameters of individual tests. The stutterers' performance on the test battery was varied : 8(26.6%) stutterers passed all tests in the battery; 7(23.3%) failed dichotic tests only; 15(50%) failed dichotic and monotic tests of which 2(6.6%) failed monotic tests. Pass/fail rates indicated that although 15 (50%) nonstutterers failed the battery 22(73.2%) stutterers failed. This result confirmed that stutterers performed significantly differently from nonstutterers on the test battery( X?= 19.87 , df=l; p<0.05). Male/famale comparisons for nonstutterers indicated no significant differences (p>0.05) on individual tests except on the ARLT where males obtained longer latencies than females. Pass /fail rates on the test battery confirmed no statistically significant (X~= 0.133 , df=l; p> 0.05) performance differences between male and female nonstutterers. For stutterers, although male performance was poorer than female performance on various parameters of individual tests ,the performance differences were not significant (p>0.05). However, pass/fail performance on the test battery indicated that significantly more males (13) than females (9) failed the test battery ( X2 = 8.66 df=l, p<0.05). The results are discussed in terms of the literature and theoretical and clinical implications are presented and discussed. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1992.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1991.

Adults who stutter (AWS) are reported to have increased levels of anxiety compared to adults who do not stutter (AWNS), particularly in social interactions (Kraaimaat, Vanryckeyham, & Dan-Baggen, 2002; Mahr & Torosian, 1999; Messenger, Onslow, Packman, & Menzies, 2004). However, the level of perceived anxiety in AWS according to specific speaking situations has not been critically evaluated. In addition, most studies addressing state anxiety (i.e., communication apprehension) are based on self-judgments (Craig, 1990; Craig, Hancook, Tran, & Craig, 2003; Ezrati-Vinacour & Levin, 2004; Gabel, Colcord, & Petrosino, 2002; Lincoln, Onslow, & Menzies, 1996; Messenger et al., 2004; Miller & Watson, 1992; Mulcahy, Hennessey, Beilby & Byrnes, 2008) which have not been verified using a physiological evaluation of anxiety. The present study sought to examine the relationship between a physiological measure of anxiety (i.e., cortisol) and perceptual judgments of communication apprehension across different speaking situations. Ten AWS aged between 19-62 years, and ten sex- and aged-matched AWNS provided salivary cortisol samples during distinct speaking situations across a one-week period. The speaking situations consisted of (1) speaking face-to-face with a friend, (2) speaking face-to-face with a single stranger, (3) speaking in front of a group of four strangers, and (4) speaking to a stranger on the telephone. Each participant also provided self-perception assessments of their perceived anxiety levels using an adaptation of the Speaking Task Response Scale (STRS; Bray & James, 2009) before and after each speaking situation. Results of the cortisol analysis revealed no statistical difference in cortisol levels across the four speaking situations between AWS and AWNS. A significant difference was found between self-perceived anxiety levels in the pre-speaking situation between AWS and AWNS. Speaking face-to-face with a friend was perceived by the AWS to result in the lowest level of anxiety compared to the remaining three situations. Correlational analyses revealed a significant relationship between cortisol levels and self-reported anxiety in the AWS group but no such relationship was evident for AWNS. On the basis of the combined results from the cortisol and self-perception analyses it can be concluded that AWS differ from AWNS in their communication apprehension, most notably in regard to speaking in any situation other than a familiar person (e.g., friend). This difference between AWS and AWNS is most evident in measures of self-perception, although it is likely there is an associated physiological contributing factor.

Dichotic listening of auditory stimuli is used to assess brain lateralisation by simultaneously presenting different stimuli to the left and right ears to determine which syllable was perceived as being the clearest. There is a limited, albeit dated number of studies that have examined dichotic listening performance in adults who stutter (AWS) and the results remain inconclusive. The aim of this research was to investigate whether AWS show a difference in the magnitude of the right ear advantage (REA) in both undirected and directed attentional tasks when compared with adults who do not stutter (AWNS). There were 14 right-handed participants, consisting of seven AWS and seven age and sex matched AWNS controls. All participants were screened for normal hearing. They completed a dichotic listening task, which included undirected and directed attentional listening tasks. Participants were to select the consonant-vowel (CV) pair they heard the clearest. The interaural intensity difference (IID) was modulated randomly during the undirected attention task. The results for the undirected task revealed: (1) a significant REA for AWS for the IID conditions of 0 to +21 dB and significant left ear advantages (LEA) for IIDs of -15 to -21 dB; (2) a significant REA for AWNS for the IID conditions of -9 to +21 dB and significant LEAs for IIDs of -18 to -21 dB; (3) laterality index scores with a significant IID effect but no significant group or group-by-ear interaction effects using parametric statistics. Further analysis of laterality using non-parametric statistics found significant differences between the fluency groups. In general, the findings in this study were revealing of differences between AWS and AWNS when performing dichotic listening tasks with speech stimuli. The primary difference observed between groups was in regards to the IID point at which a previous REA became a LEA. This “crossing-over” point occurred later for AWNS, indicating a strong left hemisphere advantage for the processing of speech. The earlier “crossing-over” for AWS would indicate that the right hemisphere was activated sooner for the processing of speech compared to AWNS. This activation of the right hemisphere is assumed to reflect more diffuse cerebral lateralisation for speech processing for the AWS and confirms past brain imaging studies. In the directed attention task, there was no significant difference between AWS and AWNS indicating that instances of stuttering may occur due to more automatic (bottom-up) speech processing. These findings have implications for theories of laterality and hemispheric asymmetry for phonological processing for AWS, which has been suggested to reflect a subgroup of AWS for whom cerebral dominance is related to their disfluency.

This study compared the syntactic skills of stutterers, highly disfluent nonstutterers, and highly fluent nonstutterers utilizing Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) procedures. Incorporating analysis of covariance techniques with age and speaker classification as independent variables, significant differences among total DSS scores were found for speaker classifications. Since mean DSS scores for stutterers fell between the mean scores of the two nonstuttering groups, no clear relationship between stuttering and syntactic skills was determined.Loci of disfluencies for stutterers were analyzed by individual categories within the DSS model utilizing one-way analysis of variance with repeated measures techniques. Loci of disfluencies occurred significantly more frequently in the categories of Wh-questions, conjunctions, and personal pronouns. Limitations of this research were given to account for these differences.

This study explores participants' experiences of stuttering in their lifeworlds over time through the lens of self-identity formations. The critical questions raised are: How do participants form their self-identities in their lifeworlds over time in relation to stuttering? In the context of their self-identity formations, how do they negotiate stuttering? A narrative life history methodology was used with intention to access personal, temporal and social dimensions of experience. Seven adult participants, two female and five male participants, with histories of living with stuttering since childhood, were invited to share their stories. Their personal experiences are embedded in diverse lifeworlds in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, a context making a sociopolitical transition from apartheid to democracy. The data was produced through retrospective accounts of their experiences via a series of dialogical interviews. Issues of empathy, power, and positioning and quality in the research process are problematised. The data was analysed at three levels. The first level of analysis entailed a narrative analysis of interview data, represented as seven individual research stories. The second level of analysis is a cross-case analysis using the seven research stories for the purposes of theorising. The outcomes of the third level of analysis are abstractions and explanatory concepts which respond to the critical questions in a general way. The genesis of two self-identity trajectories, self-identity as DisOther and self-identity as Able/Potential are traced over time. The biographical, contextual and social forces shaping self-identity formations and participants' actions in negotiating stuttering are illuminated. The self-identity trajectories are unique in the context of each biography. However, the relative prominence of self-identity formation as DisOther across cases in school years was evident. In contrast, self-identity as Able/Potential became prominent, during adulthood, for some participants. The experience is rendered as complex and fluid through a set of abstractions and explanatory concepts. These concepts foreground the changing and multiple relationships between self-identity formations, the influence of social forces shaping self-identity, the impact critical catalysts shaping self-identity formations, and strategic manipulation of self-identity in negotiating stuttering. In particular, the strategies to negotiate stuttering successfully are examined. The limitations of the study and potential application of this theoretical offering in the research, educational and clinical domains of Speech-Language Pathology are discussed. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Durban-Westville, 2003.