Stuttering and Cluttering

An experiment on measuring awareness of stuttering in individuals with Down syndrome

“…This attitude reflects in certain emotions, cognitions and behaviors towards stuttering (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Stuttering can lead to emotions of frustration, anger and shame, to negative thoughts about one's own speech and abilities, and to secondary behaviors (Scott, 2017). These behaviors are conditioned responses to avoid or resolve stuttering (Plexico et al, 2009;Scott, 2017).…”

“…Stuttering can lead to emotions of frustration, anger and shame, to negative thoughts about one's own speech and abilities, and to secondary behaviors (Scott, 2017). These behaviors are conditioned responses to avoid or resolve stuttering (Plexico et al, 2009;Scott, 2017). If a child experiences a negative consequence to a stuttering event (e.g., negative listener reaction, inability to express themselves), a learning process starts.…”

“…Stuttering is a fluency and communication disorder characterized by involuntary repetitions, prolongations, and blocks of sounds or syllables in ongoing speech (Scott, 2017).…”

The relation between gestures and stuttering in individuals with Down syndrome

“…A specific speech problem in individuals with Down syndrome is stuttering (Devenny & Silverman, 1990; Eggers & Van Eerdenbrugh, 2018; Kent & Vorperian, 2013; Otto & Yairi, 1974; Preus, 1972; Van Borsel & Tetnowski, 2007). Stuttering is a disorder in the fluency of speech that is characterised by involuntary disfluencies such as sound, syllable and/or monosyllabic word repetitions (e.g., b‐b‐b‐backpack; pe‐pe‐pe‐pensil; we‐we‐we‐we), sound prolongations (e.g., mmmmoney; niiiiice) and blocks (e.g., a…..apple), where the airflow is temporarily obstructed and the speaker cannot move forward (Ambrose & Yairi, 1999; Scott, 2017). These stuttering‐like‐disfluencies are separate from typical disfluencies such as polysyllabic whole‐word repetitions (e.g., yesterday–yesterday), phrase repetitions (e.g., I will I will go away), phrase revisions (Dad said/Dad asked what we did) and interjections (e.g., uhm) that occur in the speech of both individuals who do and who do not stutter (Ambrose & Yairi, 1999).…”

“…Stuttering appears to have a high occurrence in individuals with Down syndrome with a mean prevalence around 30% (Devenny & Silverman, 1990; Eggers & Van Eerdenbrugh, 2018; Kent & Vorperian, 2013; Otto & Yairi, 1974; Preus, 1972; Van Borsel & Tetnowski, 2007), while in individuals with intellectual disability and in individuals with typical development it is respectively 5% and 1% (Van Borsel & Tetnowski, 2007; Yairi & Ambrose, 2013). Individuals often try to cope with these disruptions, resulting in secondary behaviours (Scott, 2017). Secondary behaviours are coping strategies that lose their fluency enhancing effects and become classically conditioned parts of the stuttering events that add to the stuttering severity.…”