Auditory processing and perceptual abilities of “organic” and “functional” stutterers

Abstract

The present investigation was undertaken to determine whether significant differences in auditory processing and perceptual abilities exist between (1) stutterers as a supposedly homogeneous group when compared with controls, (2) two differentiated subgroups of stutterers, and (3) either of the stuttering subgroups when separately compared with controls. Dichotic listening and masking level difference (MLD) tasks were administered to the two groups of school-age stutterers and an age-matched nonstuttering control group. Stuttering subjects were differentiated into "organic" and "functional" subgroups on the basis of neuropsychological test performances. Organic stutterers performed significantly poorer than did controls on one MLD experimental condition. Functional stutterers performed more like control subjects than like organic stutterers. Starkweather, Hirschman, and Tannenbaum, 1976), atypical performance on neuropsychological tests (Daly and Smith, 1976; Daly, Kimbarrow, and Smith, 1977), lack of cerebral dominance (Curry and Gregory, 1969; Brady and Berson, 1975), and dysfunction of auditory processing and perceptual abilities (Hall and Jerger, 1978; Toscher and Rupp, 1978). The hypothesis that some type of organic dysfunction may

Non-Linguistic Auditory Processing and Working Memory Update in Pre-School Children Who Stutter: An Electrophysiological Study

“…Early studies focused on the brain stem function in stuttering and compared the strength of acoustic reflex and the ability to cope with low signal-to-noise ratios in adults who stutter (AWS) and normally fluent speakers (NFS). They reported conflicting results, with some studies finding a difference between AWS and NFS (e.g., Hall & Jerger, 1978; Liebetrau & Daly, 1981; Kramer, Green & Guitar, 1987) and some not (e.g., Hannley & Dorman, 1982; Dmitrieva & Gel’man, 2001). In their review of the low-level auditory function in stuttering, Hannley and Dorman (1982) conclude that the lack of replicable differences between AWS and NFS is likely due to the heterogeneity of the stuttering disorder and to typically small group sizes (often less than 10 individuals in each) used for comparisons.…”

The onset of stuttering following drug overdose

“…Comparison with scores of 26 stuttering children on the Michigan Neuropsychological Test Battery (Rentschler and Liebetrau, 1981) revealed dissimilarities that were not unlike those seen in comparisons with Cox's (1982) developmental stutterers. While neuropsychologic deficits are reported in some stuttering children (Liebetrau and Daly, 1981;Rentschler and Liebetrau, 1981), the nature and form of their deficits differ from this case of acquired stuttering. Several aspects of Mr. H.'s behaviors were characteristic of developmental stuttering, for example the profound effect of masking and the dramatic reduction of stuttering evidenced under conditions of perceptualaltering drugs.…”

Weak Vestibular Response in Persistent Developmental Stuttering: Implications for Own Voice Identification

“…Such a distinction has been established in studies which split the PWS group into those with and without a co-occurring diagnosis (e.g. Cullinan & Springer, 1980;Liebetrau & Daly, 1981;McKnight & Cullinan, 1987;Kobayashi & Hayasaka, 2003) REMATCH places stuttering at the semantic-pragmatic interface, but is compatible with the psycholinguistic models introduced in section 3.2.3.1. Application of the psycholinguistic models will help to distinguish tracks I-IV.…”

“…Such a distinction has been established in studies which split the PWS group into those with and without a co-occurring diagnosis (e.g. Cullinan & Springer, 1980; Liebetrau & Daly, 1981; McKnight & Cullinan, 1987; Kobayashi & Hayasaka, 2003)…”