Developmental profiles of coarticulation for an early diagnosis of persistent stuttering in preschool age.

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between abnormal coarticulation profiles in two stuttering children and the risk to develop persistent stuttering. According to Subramanian et al. (2003), in fact, shortly after the onset of the disorder, children whose stuttering will eventually persist show a higher degree of coarticulation than children who will eventually recover. Comparisons were made among one child known to be a persistent stutterer, one child known to be a recovered stutterer and 26 normally fluent controls. Anticipatory coarticulation was analyzed with the Locus Equation metric. Contrary to expectations, data show that the child who eventually persist presents a lower degree of coarticulation than the control group while the other one, who eventually recovered from stuttering, shows a degree of coarticulation very close to the control group range.