Implicit and explicit motor learning in children and adults who stutter

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Developmental stuttering is a speech fluency disorder, which typically has its onset in pre-pubescent children. There is significant evidence that speech motor deficits are at the core of the disorder. These deficits, which likely are genetic and neural in nature, are considered fundamental to our understanding of the onset, development and recovery from stuttering. In our previous research, we have investigated the extent to which adults who stutter are deficient in their ability to acquire novel motor skills. Our results have demonstrated that these adults are less proficient than nonstuttering speakers acquiring new speech sequences, even after extensive practice. Early evidence of differences in skill consolidation between the stuttering and nonstuttering adults has suggested that this deficit may reflect both motor execution and motor learning processes. Importantly, our results also have shown clear parallels between deficient performance in both speech and non-speech (finger sequencing) motor skills, supporting the hypothesis that these deficiencies affecting people who stutter are not limited to speech articulation but may reflect a general motor deficit.