Bilingual speech: Bilateral control?

Forty bilinguals from several language backgrounds were contrasted to a group of English-speaking monolinguals on a verbal-manual interference paradigm. For the monolinguals, concurrent finger-tapping rate during speech output tasks was disrupted only for the right hand, indicating left-hemisphere language dominance. Bilingual laterality patterns were a function of language used: native (L1) versus second acquired (L2), and age of L2 acquisition. Early bilinguals (L1 + L2 acquisition prior to age 6) revealed left-hemisphere dominance for both languages, whereas late bilinguals (L2 acquired beyond age 6) revealed left-hemisphere dominance only for L1 and symmetrical hemispheric involvement for L2.     

The semantic deficit hypothesis: Perceptual parsing and object classification by aphasic patients

Many aphasic patients are impaired in their ability to provide or to recognize the names of objects, but little is known about the processing deficits that underlie these difficulties. In this report, a model of object naming/name recognition is proposed, and a prediction is tested concerning one possible functional locus of impairment in name-recognition and object-naming disorders. A subgroup of aphasic patients is found to be impaired in the ability to perform perceptual similarity judgments for pairs of stimulus objects, and to be unable to classify the objects into one of two lexical categories. It is concluded that the classification disorder suffered by these patients results from an impairment at the level of the semantically guided perceptual parsing of objects.     

Cerebral organization in adult second language acquisition: Is the right hemisphere more involved?

A Spanish-English dichotic listening study was designed to test the hypothesis that the right hemisphere might be more involved during the initial stages of informal, adult second language acquisition. No evidence was found in support of the hypothesis. Results are discussed within the general theoretical framework of the right hemisphere's role in second language performance and bilingualism.     

The effects of pacing and masking on stutterers' and nonstutterers' speech initiation times

The present study was undertaken to determine whether pacing and masking would facilitate improved speech initiation times (SITs) both for stutterers and for nonstutterers. All subjects were tested in control, pacing, and masking conditions. The results showed that both stutterers and nonstutterers (1) improved their SITs during the pacing condition as compared with the control condition (p = 0.01), (2) had slower SITs in the masking condition as compared with the control condition (p = 0.05), and (3) had faster SITs during the pacing as compared with the masking condition (p = 0.01). The SIT between-group findings demonstrated that stutterers were slower than nonstutterers across all SIT conditions (p = 0.08). The discussion of these results centers on the facilatory nature of novel stimulation in modifying speech-system functioning.     

Disfluency characteristics of 2-, 4-, and 6- yr-old males

Fluency characteristics of 36 nonstuttering males aged 2, 4, and 6 yr are presented in terms of patterns of disfluency and relationships among disfluency variables. The most frequently occuring disfluency types at each age level were revision-incomplete phrase and interjections; the least noted type was part-word repetitions for 2- and 4-yr olds and disrhythmic phonations for 6-yr-olds. Patterns of disfluency appear to be similar at all age levels studied, except that the 2-yr-old pattern showed greater magnitudes in various disfluency types. A range exists in the relationships among individual disfluency types, from moderately strong relationships between, for example, revision-incomplete phrase and interjections to lack of linear relationships between, for example, interjections and phrase repetitions. A linguistic factor may be strong within certain disfluency types. e.g., revision-incomplete phrase, interjections, and word repetitions, whereas a motor factor may be operative in others, e.g., part-word repetitions and disrhythmic phonations.     

Demographic characteristics and treatment experiences of women and men who stutter

This paper reports interview data collected from ten men and ten women who stutter. The responses of the subjects tend to (a) highlight the multidimensionality of stuttering, (b) provide additional support for the conclusion drawn earlier of gender differences in stuttering symptomatology, and (c) raise questions about the manner in which stuttering is treated.     

The precision fluency shaping program: Replication and evaluation

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a two-year project to evaluate the Precision Fluency Shaping Program (Webster, 1980) in a community speech and hearing center. Fifty stutterers participated in therapy. Results indicated that Precision Fluency Shaping was an effective therapy for the treatment of stuttering. In addition, stutterer's perception of their speech changed from pre to post therapy. Follow-up data are presented on 28 clients. Advantages of conducting Precision Fluency Shaping, meeting accountability standards, and procedures for collecting follow-up data are discussed.     

Nonspecific elements in therapy with stutterers

Currently, many different strategies are employed by respected professionals working in the area of therapy for persons who stutter. This phenomenon serves as a point of departure for reflections on the nonspecific elements involved in therapy. Drawing on the literature of holistic medicine and psychotherapy these elements are identified as follows: (1) active participation of the client in the therapy process; (2) role of self-management skills; (3) influence of client's expectations regarding treatment; (4) suggestion as a factor in therapy; and (5) the therapeutic relationship.     

Vocal and nonvocal discriminative performance in monkeys

Discriminative performance of a lever press and a vocal call was compared in five macaques. The animals exhibited similar scores for Response Rate, Efficiency, and Error Index. Total vocal responses were slightly higher than total lever responses. Latency for vocal responses was significantly greater than lever press. Similar scores in measures of performance of the two behaviors indicate that discriminative vocalization is not exceedingly difficult. Failure by others to achieve discriminative vocalization in studies employing weak positive-reinforcement contingencies suggest that certain experimental paradigms are unsatisfactory for vocal conditioning.     

Rate reduction strategies used by normally fluent and stuttering children and adults

Speech rate can be reduced by prolonging the duration of phonetic units, by pausing between words, or through a combination of these approaches. Child and adult normally fluent speakers and stutterers were tested in basal and modified speaking rate conditions. Subjects' utterances in both conditions were converted to spectrographic displays so that measures of phonetic and pause durations could be made. Comparisons of these measures across conditions revealed that all four groups of subjects spontaneously extended pause and phonetic durations, the former more than the latter, when instructed to voluntarily reduce speech rate.