(PARA)LINGUISTIC FACTORS AFFECTING CHILDHOOD STUTTERING

这项研究将评估目前儿童口吃的理论和临床实践中的几个被广泛接受但基本上未经检验的假设。这些假设是基于这样一个概念，即儿童产生各种类型的言语干扰(言语错误、正常不流利和口吃不流利)受到他们言语的某些特征的影响，例如他们说话的长度和复杂性(语言特征)，以及他们的语速和反应潜伏期(副语言特征)。研究设计包括五项研究，旨在通过测量儿童流利性的变化来系统评估儿童言语特征与他们产生的言语错误、正常不流利和口吃不流利之间的关系。实验操作包括：(A)儿童的话语长度和句法复杂性(研究L)；(B)儿童的语速和反应潜伏期(研究2)；(C)儿童的对话伙伴的言语特征(研究3)。除了考察影响儿童流利性的因素外，这项研究还将评估最近理论中对言语不流利的根本原因的解释，并试图根据言语中断时刻的声学特征，客观地区分被判定为正常的不流利和口吃(研究4)。最后，为了更全面地考察言语运动能力在儿童产生言语障碍中所起的作用，将比较口吃儿童和非口吃儿童在扩展的定向运动任务中的口头运动的速度、准确性和流利性(研究5)。这些研究的结果将通过评估关于影响儿童流利性的因素的关键假设，并通过检查正常和口吃不流利性之间的差异，来帮助评估和提炼突出的口吃理论。研究结果还将帮助临床医生评估最能说明口吃的不同类型的言语障碍，并评估儿童口吃主流治疗方法的核心假设，从而帮助改善儿童口吃的诊断和治疗。

This research will evaluate several widely held but largely untested assumptions underlying current theory and clinical practice in childhood stuttering. These assumptions are based on the notion that children's production of various types of speech disruptions (speech errors, normal disfluencies, and stuttered disfluencies) are influenced by certain characteristics of their speech, such as the length and complexity of their utterances (linguistic characteristics), and their speaking rate and response latency (paralinguistic characteristics). The research design includes five studies that will systematically evaluate the relationship between children's speech characteristics and their production of speech errors, normal disfluencies, and stuttered disfluencies by measuring change in children's fluency while experimentally manipulating: (a) children's utterance length and syntactic complexity (Study l), (b) children's speaking rate and response latency (Study 2), and (c) children's conversational partner's speech characteristics (Study 3). in addition to examining factors that affect children's fluency, this research will evaluate explanations for the underlying cause of speech disfluencies proposed in recent theories and attempt to objectively differentiate between disfluencies judged to be normal vs. stuttered, based on the acoustic characteristics of the moment of speech interruption (Study 4). Finally, to more fully examine the role speech motor abilities play in children's production of speech disfluencies, children who stutter and children who do not stutter will be compared in terms of the rate, accuracy, and fluency of their oral motor movements in an expanded diadochokinetic task (Study 5). Results from these studies will help evaluate and refine prominent theories of stuttering by evaluating key assumptions about the factors affecting children's fluency and by examining the differences between normal and stuttered disfluencies. Results will also help improve the diagnosis and treatment of children who stutter by helping clinicians evaluate different types of speech disruptions most indicative of stuttering and by evaluating several assumptions at the heart of prevailing treatments for childhood stuttering.