Pre-post therapy comparison of electrophysiological auditory findings in stutterers

Abstract

Introduction: Stuttering is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases, and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds. Aim: The aim of the study was to verify whether there is alteration of auditory-evoked potentials (AEPs) as a result of speech therapy; and to find out which parameters of AEPs alters, which can be attributed to the effect of speech therapy. Materials and Methods: The research sample was composed by 14 adult males with moderate stuttering. This group was assessed twice through brainstem auditory evoked response (BAER), middle latency response (MLR) and late latency response (LLR); assessments were carried out with a 3-month interval time. Both pre and post therapy measurements were compared. Results: Comparison between pre and post speech-language therapy results indicate an alteration of at least one parameter of each category. The observed results showed that in auditory brain stem response (ABR) test there was predominance decrease in 8 subjects (64.28%) was observed in wave I latency, while in MLR, there was predominance of increase of Pa wave (57.14%) in 8 subjects. Conclusion: Altered electrophysiological findings were observed in persons with stuttering as a result of speech therapy. ABR and LLR measurements were mostly altered showing the change in neural response to auditory stimuli.