“Awareness” in verbal conditioning of language themes during therapy with stutterers

Abstract

Twenty-two individual therapy sessions employing verbal operant conditioning procedures were conducted with eight adult stutterers, four constituting the Informed Group, and four the Noninformed Group. Informed subjects were told of contingencies operating during therapy, Noninformed Subjects were not. Responses consiste d of subjects' statements representing desirable (positive) and undesirable (negative) language themes and were manipulated by verbal approval and disapproval respectively. Both Informed and Noninformed subjects exhibited increments in language responses but only the Noninformed Group showed consistent decrements in stuttering frequency, suggesting that “awareness” of contingency may not be therapeutically beneficial. Results suggest that overt struggle components of stuttering may be altered by manipulating the thematic content of stutterers' language and that a direct clinical application of operant conditioning principles is feasible.