B.ASLP Semester II: Fluency and its Disorders - Unit 1 & 2 Review

Fluency (Etymology)

Derived from the Latin word meaning "flowing."

Fluency (Starkweather, 1986)

Effortless continuous speech at a rapid rate of utterance, whether referring to 1st or 2nd language skill.

Syntactic Fluency (Fillmore, 1979)

The ability to construct highly complex sentences.

Semantic Fluency (Fillmore, 1979)

Possessing and being able to access large vocabularies.

Pragmatic Fluency (Fillmore, 1979)

Being adept at verbal response in a variety of speaking situations.

Phonologic Fluency (Starkweather)

The ability to pronounce long and complicated sequences of sounds and syllables, including nonsense and foreign words.

Continuity

The smooth flow from one sound to another in a syllable, one syllable to another in a word, or one sentence to another in a paragraph.

Conventional Pauses (Clarke, 1971)

Pauses made by a competent speaker for emphasis or to signal something linguistically important.

Idiosyncratic Pauses (Clarke, 1971)

Aspects of performance reflecting hesitation or uncertainty over word choice, style, or syntax.

Unfilled Pauses

Simple silence that lasts longer than a given interval, typically around $250\,\text{msec}$.

Filled Pauses

The utterance of neutral or meaningless sounds such as "um", "uh", "ah", or "er".

Prolongations

Undue persistence of a phoneme.

False Starts

Grammatical corrections of syllables or words, or an incomplete utterance.

Parenthetical Remarks

Meaningful words used in an inappropriate context.

Interjections (Yairi, 1981)

The addition of a sound, syllable, or word in between speech.

Revisions (Yairi, 1981)

Modification of the content of the phrase or grammatical corrections, including modifications of pronunciation.

Broken Word (Yairi, 1981)

Incomplete production of a word that affects the normal rhythm and smoothness of speech.

Tense Pause (Yairi, 1981)

Audible manifestation of heavy breathing or muscular tension, usually occurring in the initial part of speech or between words.

Dysrhythmic Phonation (Yairi, 1981)

Prolonged timing of a word or prolonged sound characterized by improper stress or breaks not compatible with normal fluent speech.

Dysfluencies of Syllable Insertion (Minife and Cooper, 1964)

Insertion of extra sounds, syllables, or words, such as interjections, revisions, and repetitions.

Dysfluencies of Deliberation (Minife and Cooper, 1964)

Fluency disruptions characterized by pauses and prolongations.

Clustering (Silverman, 1969)

The occurrence of more than one type of dysfluency on the same word or adjacent words.

Oscillation (Mysac, 1978)

The number of repetitions per instance of dysfluency.

Average Adult Speech Rate

$5\,\text{to}\,6\,\text{syllables per second}$.

DDK (Diadochokinetic Rate)

Measures the rate at which articulators move from one place to another; normal range is $4-8\,\text{syllables/sec}$.

Words Per Minute (WPM) Formula

$\text{WPM} = \frac{\text{Number of words uttered}}{\text{Total time taken}} \times 60$.

Intrinsic Duration

The duration inherent to a particular speech sound.

Extrinsic Duration

The influence of adjacent sounds on the duration of a specific speech sound.

Anticipatory Coarticulation (Right-to-Left)