Global- and local-temporal effects of a stuttering event in the context of a clausal utterance

Abstract

The two main purposes of the study were (a) to relate the course of the global variables, Total Articulation Time (TAT) and Total Pause Time (TPT), with the frequency of stuttering events during adaptation; and (b) to examine the duration of words in various locations in the vicinity of stuttering events in the context of clausal utterances. Four stutterers provided two corpora of utterances comprising of (1) 40 utterances (8 clauses x 5 readings), with only the first reading of each clause containing a stuttering event, and (2) 40 fluent utterances (2 clauses x 5 readings x 4 stutterers). Utterances of identical clauses were obtained from matched control speakers to form two additional corpora. The main findings based on spectrographic durational measurements were that (a) the reduction of TAT and TPT through the readings paralleled the reduction of stuttering events, (b) the TAT and TPT functions were similar in stutterer's corpora, and (c) stutterers reduced TAT and TPT through the readings more than the control speakers. The analysis of the duration of words in the vicinity of stuttering events revealed that (a) there are anticipatory and carryover effects in the immediate vicinity of stuttering events in a clausal utterance; (b) the anticipatory effects were more pronounced than the carryover effects; and (c) a significant durational difference between stutterers and fluent speakers, in the duration of the last word of a clausal utterance preceding a clausal utterance containing a stuttering event, was noted. The results have been discussed in the context of literature on planning and production of speech.