[Value of acoustic speech analysis for prognostic assessment of stuttering in children. Partial results of a prospective longitudinal study].
PRESENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE: There are currently no known acoustic parameters by which stuttering children can be appraised which will predict their subsequent speech fluency.


OBJECTIVE
To explain the significance of factors which perpetuate stuttering by using computer-based speech analysis of fluent speech for a 1 1/2 year period and to relate acoustic analysis with clinical measurements of stuttering. Special attention was given to motor-oral and/or linguistic deficits.


RESULTS
A prospective study of 58 pre-school children who stutter. Correlations were sought between acoustic variables in the severity and course of the stuttering with the influence of motor-oral and linguistic disturbances. 19 age-matched, normal-speaking children served as controls. A subdivision of the study group into different subgroups with particular motor-oral and/or linguistic problems showed that children whose stuttering coincides with a delayed speech development have a distinctly better prognosis for early remission. In most of these children the stuttering remitted to such a degree as the deficits causing the stuttering could be reappraised, which means simultaneous improvement of the linguistic competence.


CONCLUSIONS
It was apparent that remission rate was much higher in those children who showed linguistic disturbances at the same time with stuttering. Within the stuttering group, subgroups showed a few correlations in several acoustic parameters, but these could not, as yet, be shown to give any prognostic markers in the routine diagnosis of children who stutter. If a child shows any danger-signs of acquiring stuttering on a more permanent basis, a careful diagnosis is necessary in order to find the individually underlying factors before any therapeutical procedure.
Brosch
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Sektion für Phoniatrie und Pädaudiologie, Universitäts-Hals-, Nasen-, Ohrenklinik, Schillerstrasse 15, 89070 Ulm. sibylle.brosch@medizin.uni-ulm.de
Häge
A
A
Johannsen
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HS
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012016:Reference Values; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013342:Stuttering / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology