Chapter 8: Fluency Disorders
- Fluency - speech that is effortless, easy, rhythmical, evenly flowing
- Disfluency - speech with phrase repetitions, interjections (fillers in speech), pauses, revisions
Fluency Disorders
- Speech disfluencies - interfere with the ability to communicate effectively and may cause the speakers to have negative emotional reactions
Stuttering
- Stuttering - high number or duration of repetitions, prolongations, and/or blockages that interrupt speech
- Stuttering is often combined with - excessive mental and physical effort to resume talking (struggle)
- Stutters may have a - Negative perception of their communication abilities, low self-esteem
Primary Stuttering
- Core behaviors of primary stuttering - repetitions, prolongations, blocks
- Repetitions - ex. bbbbasebbball
- Prolongations - stretch out a sound for the long period of time ex. vvvvvvan
- Blocks - silent prolongations (car, hold tongue tightly in the /k/ positions)
Secondary Stuttering Behaviors
- Secondary stuttering behaviors - counterproductive adaptations that started out as a way to help the stutterer
- Blink eyes, open jaw, flap arms
- Become more automatic, less successful in escaping the stutter
Individual Variability
- Stuttering is worse when
- Pressure
- Content words
- Long and complex sentences
- Authority figures
- Hurry
- Stutterers could become fluent when
- Sing
- Use pretend voices
- Choral reading
- Talk to babies/animals
- Severity of stuttering may change over time
Differences Between Individuals Who Do and Do Not Stutter
- Person who stutters has - more negative concepts about themselves, high levels of concerns regarding their speech
- Subtle differences in the language abilities of people who do and do not stutter
- Less efficient motor systems - may contribute to stuttering
- People who stutter use their brains a little differently during speech production
- Decreased neural fibers between the auditory processing and motor speech areas
- Transition between Wernicke’s and Broca’s not quite working right
Myths
- Stuttering is not that result of a nervous condition
- Parent’s reaction to their child’s disfluencies do not cause stuttering
The Etiology of Stuttering
- Complex relationships between
- internal (neurological and cognitive) factors
- external factors
- Currently the etiology of stuttering remains unknown
The Development of Stuttering
- Early Stuttering
- Normal speech in not completely fluent
- Most pre-school children are “dysfluent”
- Phrase repetition
- Interjections
- Revisions
- Pauses
- Few kids
- Speech disfluencies increase in %
- Exhibit sound repetitions, prolongations, and blocks
- Stuttering-like disfluencies: 3/100 words
- Feelings of frustration
Genetic Influences
- Strong evidence for genetic influences on the development of stuttering
- Relatives of people who stutter are generally at greater risk for stuttering then relatives of people who do not stutter
Environmental Demands and the Capacity for Fluency
- Demands and Capacity Model (DCM) - disfluencies are likely to occur in children’s speech when there is an imbalance between the demands for fluency and the child’s capacity to produce fluent speech
- 4 interrelated mechanisms contribute to the capacity for fluency
- Neural development that supports sensory-motor coordination
- Language development
- Conceptual development
- Emotional development
The Influence of Learning
- When multiple experiences occur over time as might happen during repeated instances of speech disfluency
- New neural groups that are related to speech disfluency may form, grow, and strengthen
- Children may likely recognize subtle similarities in speaking context that induce more emotion and more tense disfluencies
- Anticipate difficulties, heighten muscle tension, which increase the likelihood of disfluencies
Factors that Contribute to Chronic Stuttering
- Stuttering resolves in 65-80% of the individuals who stutter in childhood
- Growth spurt - motor speech control, language, cognition and temperament
- Chronic stuttering - used to refer to individuals who stutter into adulthood
Contributing Factors
- Genetics - natural recovery is more likely in children who do not have relatives who stutter
- Negative Feelings and Attitudes - feeling that stuttering controls the person
- Avoidance - avoid certain sounds/words/speaking situations
- Difficulties with Speech Motor Control - evidence of unusual patterns of breathing, vocalizing, and speaking even when they are not stuttering; variance of rate
- Difficulties with Language Formation - linguistic variables such as phonology, semantics, and syntax may contribute to stuttering
How to Interact with a Person Who Stutters
- Maintain reasonable eye contact
- Do not finish his words or sentences
- Do not interrupt
- Pay attention to what the person is saying, not how he is saying it
- Pause at least 1 second prior to responding
- Do not allow common stereotypes to override your opinion of the person who stutters
Assessment Procedures
- Interviews and Case Histories
- Other family members that stutter
- Changes in the disfluency over time?
- Perceptions about the person’s fluency
- Perceptions of others regarding the person’s fluency
Tests of Stuttering
- The Test of Childhood Stuttering
- Name pictures as rapidly as possible
- Produce sentences with complex grammar
- Answer questions about a series of pictures
- Tell a story that corresponds to the pictures
- Determine if a child is stuttering (compares # and types of disfluencies to normal)
- Stuttering Severity Instrument
- Determine the severity of the stuttering
- Speech samples in reading and conversation contexts
- Speech Samples
- 100 word sample
- Calculate
- Total number of words
- Count number of words that contain non-stuttering like disfluencies (phrase repetition, revisions, interjections)
- Count number of words that contain stuttering like disfluencies (sound/word repetitions, prolongations, blocks)
- Screening - hearing, OME, voice quality
- Speech/Language Testing - receptive and expressive vocabulary/language skills, articulation
- Feelings and Attitudes - Scales that patients self-report
Treatment
- There are two types of treatment
- Stuttering Modification - helps the stutterer change his stuttering so that it is relaxed and easy
- Fluency Shaping - establish a fluent manner of speaking that replaces stuttering
Stuttering Modification Therapy
- “change the way he stutters”
- Charles Van Riper (1960s) - a founding father of speech pathology, specifically articulation and stuttering
- Client is taught to stutter less and more easily
- Speech is more natural
- Considerable focus on attitudes / negative reactions to speaking
- Motivation, Identification, Desensitization, Variation, Approximation, Stabilization
Stuttering Modification: Approximation
- Cancellations - stuttering is modified after a stuttered word is completed
- taught to stop as soon as a stuttered word is completed, pause, and then say the word again in an easy manner
- Pull outs - stuttering is modified within the moment of stuttering
- ease their way out of repetitions, prolongations, and blocks
- Preparatory Set - modify the stuttering before it occurs
- anticipate stuttering on an upcoming words or sound and form a preparatory set in which they ease their way into the word
Fluency Shaping Therapy
- Neilson and Andrews (1992)
- Client is taught to have stutter-free speech
- Focus on speech naturalness
- Little to no attention given to attitudes/negative reactions
- Techniques involve:
- slower rates of speech
- relaxed breathing
- easy initiation of sounds
- smooth transitions between words
Integration of Stuttering Modification and Fluency Shaping Techniques
- Best to combine the 2 methods
- Therapy for children who stutter (3-8 years old)
- Most clinicians use fluency shaping approaches
- “Turtle talk” – slow easy onset
- Involve the family
Cluttering
- Cluttering - rapid bursts of dysrhythmic, unintelligible speech