The use of a portable delayed auditory feedback unit in stuttering therapy

A portable on-the-body delayed auditory feedback was used in the establishment and transfer modes of fluent speech in a stutterer while he was on the Monterey Fluency Program. The performance of the client was compared with a “standard” population of stutterers. The portable DAF was comparable to the larger DAF in establishment and superior in transfer with minimal behavioral and technical problems. Use and potential value of the portable DAF in transfer and maintenance phases of therapy are discussed.     

The onset of stuttering following drug overdose

Recently, some attention has been focused on acquired stuttering, disfluencies that begin in adulthood. The nature of acquired stuttering differs in several respects from developmental stuttering. A case of acquired stuttering following drug overdose is presented and contrasted with previously reported cases. The case is noteworthy in that, while many characteristics of acquired stuttering are evidenced, several symptoms associated with developmental stuttering are also observed. The findings are discussed in terms of a possible link between developmental and acquired forms of stuttering.     

Rate changes in the speech of stutterers after therapy

The fluent speaking rate of nine adult male stutterers was compared before and after stuttering intervention. The subjects, ranging in age from 18 to 37 yr (mean, 25 yr, 3 mo), exhibited mild to severe stuttering prior to treatment. The only rate reduction strategy taught to subjects during intervention was to slow the first phoneme or syllable of sentences spoken. In addition, however, subjects significantly reduced their overall rate as determined by measurements made of their fluent speech at the middle of sentences, as well as overall sentence durations (excepting the first word of utterances). The data from this investigation are interpreted relative to the facilitation/simplification hypothesis.     

Classification of spelling errors and their relationship to reading ability, sex, grade placement, and intelligence

A simple scheme for the classification of spelling errors was applied to the errors of four groups of children, totaling 483 subjects, in grades 3 to 12. The subjects in two of the groups, Group I and Group IV, consisted of individuals who attended special schools for children with dyslexia or specific reading disability (SRD). Group II included school age siblings of subjects in Group I, and Group III included subjects drawn from regular school programs. It was shown that (a) type of spelling error is independent of sex, (b) there are no consistent effects of IQ or grade level on type of spelling error, and (c) disabled readers as a group are more likely to produce dysphonetic errors than are normal readers. Although the type of spelling error produced by children who had a spelling disability only was shown to be similar to that of normal readers and to differ from that of disabled readers as a group, disabled readers were shown to differ among themselves, lending strong support to the use of spelling error type as a characteristic for identifying subgroups.     

A feature analysis of stuttered phonemes

Stuttered and nonstuttered phonemes of 20 adult males were analyzed for distinctive feature patterns using the Chomsky-Halle system. The features (+ consonantal), (- voice), (+ continuant), and (- strident) occured significantly more often in stuttering than in nonstuttering instances. Results suggest that adult stuttering is most likely to occur when the primary sites of tension and discoordination are lingual and laryngeal and when the speaker must shift from (- voice) to (+ voice).     

The identification of stuttering: Can you look and tell

This investigation focussed on how observers identify stutterers. It was found that stutterers are identified most correctly under visual circumstances as compared to auditory and combined auditory-visual conditions. Therefore, the reduction of stuttering should include removal of noticeable, interfering, and unnecessary nonverbal behaviors, particularly mouth and nostril movements.     

Hemisphere functioning and motor imitation in autistic persons

Previous research has found that a high proportion of autistic individuals exhibit an atypical pattern of hemispheric specialization suggestive of impaired left hemisphere functioning: namely, right hemisphere dominance for both verbal and visual-spatial processing. Studies of brain-damaged persons have suggested that the left hemisphere is specialized for the use of nonverbal gesture. Since a major characteristic of autism is an impairment in the use of gesture, it was predicted that autistic persons would also show atypical hemispheric specialization for motor imitation. To test this hypothesis, hemispheric activation was measured using EEG recordings of alpha rhythm in autistic and matched normal control subjects during four motor imitation tasks. Autistic subjects showed significantly greater right hemisphere activation during the imitation tasks, than normal subjects. This pattern was particularly evident in younger autistic subjects and during oral, rather than manual, imitation tasks.     

Job satisfaction related to tested congruence and differentiation

Tested personality-environment congruence and differentiation, singly and in combination, as measured by the Vocational Preference Inventory (J. L. Holland, Palo Alto, California, Consulting Psychologists Press, 1977b), were predictive of reported job satisfaction for teachers employed in five subject matter areas. Time-related variables and sex were not significantly related to the job satisfaction measure used in the study.     

Language function and dysfunction among Chinese- and English-speaking polyglots: Cortical stimulation, Wada Testing, and clinical studies

Language functions in a group of Chinese- and English-speaking polyglots living in a multiracial society have been investigated by several methods: the effects of cortical stimulation on object-naming and reading tasks in patients who required awake craniotomy, lateralization of cerebral dominance for speech by the Wada Test, and the pattern of language loss and recovery following stroke. The data indicate that these polyglots were all left hemisphere dominant for the languages tested: no consistent evidence for increased participation by the right hemisphere for language functions was found. The cortical stimulation experiments provided data most compatible with the "differential localization" model of cerebral localization in bilingualism. The variable which most influenced performance in all of these investigations was which language was used primarily for speaking as well as reading and writing at the time of the study.