Some dimensions of stuttering-like symptoms of five dysphasic patients were considered and compared to several aspects of stuttering which are generally well-known and documented. The nature and amount of the dysfluencies of dysphasia were examined, and, although the amount of non-fluency appeared to justify the label of stuttering, the nature of the dysfluencies was much like that observed in normal speakers and not that considered to be the distinguishing features of stuttering. The loci of the dysfluencies in the sequence of dysphasic speech were investigated and the majority of subjects were found to experience more difficulty on the function words of language rather than on the content or lexical words which precipitate dysfluency in stutterers. All subjects experienced the greatest difficulty on words in the initial position in the sentence as is found with stutterers. For most of the subjects the frequency of dysfluency was highest on longer words and it was observed that subjects generally experienced more difficulty on consonants than on vowels. Under conditions of propositionality it seemed that there was some increase in the frequency and severity of the dysfluencies of dysphasics while the adaptation task yielded divergent results.

No abstract

The measurement of stuttering in a conversational context presents certain problems that are difficult to resolve despite a vast literature on the appraisal of stuttering behaviour. This view stems from problems encountered in a study designed to gauge the effects of conflict generated in a family context, on the stuttering behaviour of the child. Conflict was defined as a social process and was induced for the purpose of this study, by a standardised communication conflict situation. The results of the study were not significant, however, it was not concluded that stuttering and conflict are not related. Rather, there are difficulties in establishing this relationship. One of the difficulties concerns the measurement of stuttering. This paper is concerned with some aspects of the methodology for the measurement of stuttering that seem inadequate for research that has as its data, conversational interaction in a family context. Some alternative strategies are suggested.