Inhibition and Working Memory Capacity in Adults Who Stutter

项目摘要 口吃被描述为一种多因素的障碍，表现为无意识的自动中断， 流利的演讲计划和产出。终生口吃会严重影响学业成绩， 职业成功和心理社会健康。尽管早期干预可以成功地阻止这些 许多接受治疗的儿童在成年后仍会口吃，这可能会造成不良后果。不幸的是，许多人 口吃的成年人对治疗没有反应，对许多影响因素知之甚少 促进个别客户对干预措施的反应。 临床和认知心理学的最新进展考虑了执行功能的测量 初步评估，以解决各种不同、难以治疗的客户之间的一些差异。执行人员 函数是一个潜在的调节因素，最近引起了理论和经验上的相对兴趣 儿童口吃，他们在执行功能的两个关键但重叠的方面表现出弱点： 抑制和工作记忆能力。口吃的成年人也比非口吃的成年人表现更差 在需要有效抑制过程或依赖语音工作记忆的任务中，这表明 早期执行功能缺陷在成年后仍是一个令人担忧的问题，并可能作为一种敏感的预测指标 治疗期间取得成功。对执行功能的考虑对成年人来说可能更重要 口吃比儿童更严重，因为传统和现代治疗方法严重依赖老年客户 抑制控制(A)行动、思想或情绪，和/或(B)在工作中保持新的目标行为 记忆。然而，到目前为止，执行功能相对于临床结果的预测价值对于 口吃仍然被忽视。 为了解决这一关键差距，拟议的项目将迈出第一步，证明 对行为的执行功能是成功的流利性障碍临床干预的基础。具体来说， 这项研究将检测在(1)言语抑制和(1)言语抑制期间有口吃和没有口吃的成年人的工作记忆 非言语运动[目标1]，(2)与言语产生有关的侵入性负面认知[目标2]， (3)言语运动和与言语产生相关的否定认知同时具有相似性 为口吃的成年人提供日常语音服务[目标3]。这些拟议的实验研究将建立 未来对执行功能个体差异进行全面临床研究的重要基线数据 口吃的成年人，并研究这些差异可能如何与特定的治疗策略相互作用。

Project Summary Stuttering is described as a multifactorial disorder that manifests as involuntary disruptions in the automatic, fluent planning and production of speech. Lifelong stuttering has a crippling impact on academic achievement, occupational success, and psychosocial wellness. Although early intervention can be successful to deter these negative outcomes, many children who receive treatment continue to stutter into adulthood. Unfortunately, many adults who stutter do not respond to treatment, and little is known about the mediating factors that many contribute to an individual client’s response to intervention. Recent advances in clinical and cognitive psychology have considered measures of executive function during initial assessment to account for some of the variability across heterogeneous, difficult-to-treat clients. Executive function is one potential moderating factor that has recently garnered theoretical and empirical interest relative to stuttering in children, who exhibit weaknesses in two critical but overlapping aspects of executive function: inhibition and working memory capacity. Adults who stutter also perform more poorly than non-stuttering adults during tasks that require efficient inhibition processes or rely on phonological working memory, suggesting that early executive function deficits remain a concern into adulthood and may serve as a sensitive predictor of success during treatment. Consideration of executive function may be of even greater importance to adults who stutter than children, as traditional and contemporary treatment approaches for older clients rely heavily on inhibitory control of (a) actions, thoughts, or emotions, and/or (b) maintaining new target behaviors in working memory. To date, however, the predictive value of executive function relative to clinical outcomes for adults who stutter remains overlooked. To address this critical gap, the proposed project will take the first steps in demonstrating the relevance of executive function to behaviors which underlie successful clinical intervention for fluency disorders. Specifically, this study will examine working memory in adults who do and do not stutter during inhibition of (1) speech and non-speech motor movements [Aim 1], (2) intrusive negative cognitions related to speech production [Aim 2], and (3) speech motor movement and negative cognitions related to speech production, simultaneously, similar to everyday speech production for adults who stutter [Aim 3]. These proposed experimental studies will establish important baseline data for future full-fledged clinical investigations of individual differences in executive function in adults who stutter, and examining how these differences may interact with specific treatment strategies.