Purpose: The aim of this research was to examine the relationship between stuttering and bilingualism to hemispheric asymmetry for the processing and production of language.
Methods: A total of 80 native speakers of German were recruited for the study, ranging in age from 15 to 58 years. Out of those 80 participants, 40 participants were also proficient speakers of English as a second language (L2). The participants were organised into four speaker groups (20 per group) according to language ability and speech status, consisting of monolinguals who stutter (MWS), monolinguals who do not stutter (MWNS), bilinguals who stutter (BWS), and bilinguals who do not stutter (BWNS). Each of the four groups comprised 12 males and 8 females. All participants completed a battery of behavioural assessments measuring functional cerebral hemispheric asymmetry during language processing and production. The behavioural tests included (1) a dichotic listening paradigm, (2) a visual hemifield paradigm, and (3) a dual-task paradigm.
Results: Overall, the results showed no significant differences in language lateralisation between participant groups on the three behavioural tests. However group differences were identified in regard to executive functions on the visual hemifield and dual-task paradigms. Both bilingual groups showed significantly faster reaction times and fewer errors than the two monolingual groups on the visual hemifield paradigm. The bilingual groups also performed similarly on the dual-task paradigm, while the MWS group tended to show greater task disruption. No meaningful relationship was found between stuttering severity and the majority of results obtained for the test conditions. However, all four language modalities were found to correlate significantly with results obtained for the visual hemifield and dual-task paradigms, suggesting that performance on these tests increased with higher L2 proficiency.
Conclusion: Although no differences in language lateralisation were found, it appears that bilingualism had a greater influence on functional cerebral hemispheric processing than stuttering. A prevailing finding was that bilingualism seems to be able to offset deficits in executive functioning associated with stuttering. Brain reserve and cognitive reserve are thought to have a close interrelationship with the executive control system. Cognitive reserve may have been reflected in the present study, resulting in a bilingual cognitive advantage. Hence, the results of the present study lend support to previous findings implicating the benefits of bilingualism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/10739 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Kornisch, Myriam |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. Communication Disorders |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Myriam Kornisch, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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