Phonological Priming in Children who Stutter

University Of Texas Austin, Austin TX

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): At present, no satisfactory theory exists for the separate occurrence of childhood stuttering and difficulties with phonological encoding, much less their common co-occurrence. Developing such theory, it could be speculated that the phonological encoding of children who stutter is less efficient than children who do not stutter; an inefficiency that may be related to a delay in the ability of children who stutter to shift from holistic to incremental processing of phonological representations. Such a delay likely contributes to the overt hesitations, repetitions, and blockages in speech that comprise the sine qua non of stuttering. Thus, the specific aims of the proposed study are to assess differences in speech reaction time between children who do and do not stutter where speed and type (i.e., holistic versus incremental) of phonological encoding is experimentally manipulated by priming procedures during picture naming tasks. The possibility that their performance will vary based on their phonemic awareness will also be explored through appropriate statistical procedures. In addition, the relationship between holistic versus incremental processing and persistence of stuttering will be empirically examined.