The Successful Stuttering Management Program: A Preliminary Report on Outcomes

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Tsiamtsiouris ◽  
Kim Krieger

Abstract The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that adults who stutter will exhibit significant improvements after attending a residential, 3-week intensive program that focuses on avoidance reduction and stuttering modification therapy. Preliminary analyses focused on four measures: (a) SSI-3, (b) speech rate, (c) S-24 Scale, and (d) OASES. Results indicated significant improvements on all of the measures.

2000 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 513-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank R. Boutsen ◽  
Gene J. Brutten ◽  
Christopher R. Watts

The timing and intensity variability of 8 adults who stutter and 8 age-matched fluent speakers was investigated under metronomic conditions. Participants were required to produce double or triple-stress patterns at a slow speech rate (1 syllable/870 ms) when repeating the syllable /stæt/ or /stræt/ nine times. Measures that are sensitive to cyclic rather than overall variation in syllable timing and intensity were employed. Specifically, durational variation between successive syllable onsets as well as intensity variation of the beginning consonant and vowel in successive syllables were computed. Results revealed that, although intensity variation was similar, the timing of successive syllables of persons who stutter was significantly more variable than that of persons who do not stutter. These outcomes are discussed in relation to previous experiments of timing control of persons who stutter and normally fluent persons during metronomic stimulation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keiko Yukawa ◽  
Yoshihiko Yamazaki ◽  
Yuki Yonekura ◽  
Taisuke Togari ◽  
Fusae K. Abbott ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Pollard

In this study, we documented the effects of a 3-week, intensive stuttering treatment program on overt and covert symptoms of stuttering and participants’ levels of social anxiety. This study was a preliminary report in which we used a single-group pretest-posttest design to analyze outcomes data with reference to each participant individually and described general group trends. Researchers gave 5 adult participants who stuttered a battery of self-report instruments and collected speech samples before and after treatment. We found that disfluencies lessened considerably for all participants, although most continued to stutter at levels above those of normally fluent speakers. All participants except for 1 were far less negatively affected by stuttering after treatment and greatly reduced their reported levels of social anxiety. Several participants in this sample displayed pathological levels of social anxiety pretreatment. Preliminary data indicate that this intensive program generally achieved its stated goals of facilitating improved stuttering/speech management and psychological/attitudinal management. We need further investigations to document the durability of the gains reported herein, as well as the clinical implications of social anxiety as a comorbid condition in some persons who stutter.


Author(s):  
Daichi Iimura ◽  
Shoko Miyamoto

Purpose In this study, we investigated the classification of cluttering by assessing speech based on the ratio of disfluencies (RDF) and attempted to identify cluttering and cluttering–stuttering by classifying disfluencies according to previous studies and the Japanese Standardized Test for Stuttering. We further investigated the factors that contribute to the occurrence of disfluency by comparing the disfluencies of three tasks (spontaneous speech, oral reading, and retelling a memorized story) and examining the relationship between RDF and speech rate. Method The participants comprised 20 Japanese adults who stutter. Participants were required to perform an oral reading task, retelling a memorized story task, and a spontaneous speech task. We subsequently classified their disfluencies and calculated the RDF (normal disfluencies that are often observed in cluttering/stuttering-like disfluencies). Results About half of the participants met the cluttering criteria, that is, an RDF of above 3. Analyzing speech disfluencies revealed that a high RDF is associated with fewer stuttering-like disfluencies that increase the denominator of the RDF formula or many “interjections” that make its numerator smaller. Conclusions These tendencies of speech disfluencies could influence cluttering identification. We should further utilize the RDF considering the findings of this study.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 746-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Caruso ◽  
Wojtek J. Chodzko-Zajko ◽  
Debra A. Bidinger ◽  
Ronald K. Sommers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of speed and cognitive stress on the articulatory coordination abilities of adults who stutter. Cardiovascular (heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure), behavioral (dysfluencies, errors, speech rate, and response latency), and acoustic (word duration, vowel duration, consonant-vowel transition duration/extent, and formant center frequency) measures for nine stutterers and nine nonstutterers were collected during performance of the Stroop Color Word task, a well-established and highly stressful cognitive task. Significant differences were found between the two groups for heart rate, word duration, vowel duration, speech rate, and response latency. In addition, stutterers produced more dysfluencies under speed plus cognitive stress versus speed stress or a self-paced reading task. These findings demonstrate that the presence of cognitive stress resulted in greater temporal disruptions and more dysfluencies for stutterers than for nonstutterers. However, similar spatial impairments were not evident. The potential contributions of the Stroop paradigm to stuttering research as well as the need for further research on autonomic correlates of stuttering are also discussed.


1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 177-179
Author(s):  
W. W. Shane

In the course of several 21-cm observing programmes being carried out by the Leiden Observatory with the 25-meter telescope at Dwingeloo, a fairly complete, though inhomogeneous, survey of the regionl11= 0° to 66° at low galactic latitudes is becoming available. The essential data on this survey are presented in Table 1. Oort (1967) has given a preliminary report on the first and third investigations. The third is discussed briefly by Kerr in his introductory lecture on the galactic centre region (Paper 42). Burton (1966) has published provisional results of the fifth investigation, and I have discussed the sixth in Paper 19. All of the observations listed in the table have been completed, but we plan to extend investigation 3 to a much finer grid of positions.


Author(s):  
J. R. Adams ◽  
G. J Tompkins ◽  
A. M. Heimpel ◽  
E. Dougherty

As part of a continual search for potential pathogens of insects for use in biological control or on an integrated pest management program, two bacilliform virus-like particles (VLP) of similar morphology have been found in the Mexican bean beetle Epilachna varivestis Mulsant and the house cricket, Acheta domesticus (L. ).Tissues of diseased larvae and adults of E. varivestis and all developmental stages of A. domesticus were fixed according to procedures previously described. While the bean beetles displayed no external symptoms, the diseased crickets displayed a twitching and shaking of the metathoracic legs and a lowered rate of activity.Examinations of larvae and adult Mexican bean beetles collected in the field in 1976 and 1977 in Maryland and field collected specimens brought into the lab in the fall and reared through several generations revealed that specimens from each collection contained vesicles in the cytoplasm of the midgut filled with hundreds of these VLP's which were enveloped and measured approximately 16-25 nm x 55-110 nm, the shorter VLP's generally having the greater width (Fig. 1).


Author(s):  
Walter J. Sapp ◽  
D.E. Philpott ◽  
C.S. Williams ◽  
K. Kato ◽  
J. Stevenson ◽  
...  

Space flight, with its unique environmental constraints such as immobilization, decreased and increased pressures, and radiation, is known to affect testicular morphology and spermatogenesis. Selye, summarized the manifestations of physiological response to nonspecific stress and he pointed out that atrophy of the gonads always occurred. Reports of data collected from two dogs flown in space for 22 days (Cosmos 110) indicate that there was an increase of 30 to 70% atypical spermatozoa when compared to ground based controls. Seventy-five days after the flight the abnormalities had decreased to the high normal value of 30% and mating of these dogs after this period produced normal offspring, suggesting complete recovery. Effects of immobilization and increased gravity were investigated by spinning rats and mice at 2x g for 8-9 weeks. A decrease in testicular weight was noted in spun animals when compared to controls. Immobilization has been show to cause arrest of spermatogenesis in Macaca meminstrins.


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