The Relationship Between Degree of Audible Struggle and Judgments of Childhood Disfluencies as Stuttered or Not Stuttered

Abstract

This study investigated whether degree of audible struggle can be used to categorically distinguish childhood stuttered disfluencies from normal disfluencies. Twenty-nine first-year graduate students in communication disorders listened, on two occasions, to 100 disfluent utterances provided by 10 preschool-aged children. Fourteen listeners judged whether each utterance was stuttered or not stuttered, and 15 listeners used a 7-point scale to rate the degree of struggle heard in each utterance. Binary logistic regression analysis indicated that as the perception of degree of struggle increased, so did the likelihood that the disfluent production would be judged as stuttered ( p < 0.00001). For those utterances having high agreement regarding disfluency classification, average ratings of struggle were found to categorically distinguish between stuttered and nonstuttered classes of disfluency. It is suggested that a rating scale for degree of struggle may be a useful clinical tool for diagnosing childhood stuttering. Further study is needed to more fully explore the potential applications of such a tool.