Effects of perceptual and conceptual similarity in lexical priming of young children who stutter: Preliminary findings

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of conceptual and perceptual properties of words on the speed and accuracy of lexical retrieval of children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) during a picture-naming task. Participants consisted of 13 3-to 5-year-old CWS and the same number of CWNS. All participants had speech, language, and hearing development within normal limits, with the exception of stuttering for CWS. Both talker groups participated in a picturenaming task where they named, one at a time, computer-presented, black-on-white drawings of common age-appropriate objects. These pictures were named during four auditory priming conditions: (a) a neutral prime consisting of a tone, (b) a word prime physically related to the target word, (c) a word prime functionally related to the target word, and (d) a word prime categorically related to the target word. Speech reaction time (SRT) was measured from the offset of presentation of the picture target to the onset of participant's verbal speech response. Results indicated that CWS were slower than CWNS across priming conditions (i.e., neutral, physical, function, category) and that the speed of lexical retrieval of CWS was more influenced by functional than perceptual aspects of target pictures named. Findings were taken to suggest that CWS tend to organize lexical information functionally more so than physically and that this tendency may relate to difficulties establishing normally fluent speech and language.

Age of acquisition and repetition priming effects on picture naming of children who do and do not stutter

“…Nevertheless, it seems relatively safe to say that semanticphonological connections are probably not a major source of difficulty for CWS. Rather, any difficulties CWS have with speech-language production may be more related to lexical or phonological encoding (e.g., Byrd et al, 2007;Hartfield & Conture, 2006), morphosyntactic construction (e.g., Anderson & Conture, 2004), or a combination of processes (Anderson, 2007;Anderson & Byrd, in press). …”

“…More recently, Hartfield and Conture (2006) examined the effect of conceptual (i.e., categorical and functional) and perceptual (i.e., physical) primes on picture naming speed and accuracy. Findings revealed that CWS were not only slower to name pictures across all conditions than CWNS, but they also named pictures more rapidly following functionally related primes relative to physically related primes.…”

“…To date, experimental investigations of language processing in CWS have examined whether stuttering could be related to difficulties with the formation, storage, or retrieval of phonological (lexeme) or lexical (lemma) representations (e.g., Byrd et al, 2007;Hartfield & Conture, 2006;. However, perhaps the source of difficulty is not in the encoding of phonological or lexical representations, but rather in the mapping of semantic representations onto phonological representations (i.e., the connection between representational levels).…”

Nonword repetition ability of children who do and do not stutter and covert repair hypothesis

“…[1][2][3][4] Some other recent empirical studies on children who stutter (CWS) [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] suggest that linguistic issues in CWS may be somewhat different from children who do not stutter (CWNS). Arguably, further investigation in this area of research should provide specifically meaningful insight into whether some parts of the linguistic processes are involved in the initiation and maintenance of stuttering in young children.…”

Contribuições de testes de tempo de reação para avaliações do comportamento motor e da saúde: software E-Prime®

“…Nesta pesquisa, observa-se maior uso do acessório externo fornecido com o pacote de software 9,[13][14][15]18,30 , mas o teclado veio em segundo lugar [10][11][12]17 . Somente o estudo de Finlayson, King e Blundell 16 utilizou um mouse para registro das respostas.…”