A comparison of the performance of Persian speaking children who do and do not stutter on three nonwords repetition tasks

PurposeThe purpose of the study was to examine the performance of Persian speaking children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) on three nonword repetition tasks, while also focusing on which task and scoring method best differentiates the two groups of children.MethodThirty CWS and 30 CWNS between the ages of 5;0 to 6;6 completed three nonword repetition tasks that varied in complexity. Each task was scored using two methods: nonwords correct and phonemes correct. Between-group differences in performance on each task were examined, along with disfluencies for CWS and the task and scoring method that best differentiated the CWS and CWNS.ResultsThe findings revealed that, across all three nonword repetition tasks, the CWS consistently produced fewer nonwords correct and phonemes correct than the CWNS group at virtually all syllable lengths. The CWS produced more disfluencies on longer nonwords than shorter nonwords in all three nonword repetition tasks. The nonword repetition task with lower wordlikeness and more phonologically complex items best differentiated the two groups of children. Findings further revealed that discriminative accuracy was highest for scoring based on the number of phonemes produced correctly.ConclusionFindings provide further evidence to suggest that CWS may have difficulty with phonological working memory and/or phonological processing.