Another case of word-final disfluencies.
It has commonly been thought that stuttering and related disfluencies do not occur at the end of words. However, word-final disfluencies have been documented in the literature and may be underreported at present. This study investigated word-final disfluencies as they occurred in a 12-year-old boy. Word-final disfluencies constituted the major type of disfluencies in this individual and most often involved repetition of a linguistic unit larger than a singleton consonant. They occurred more frequently on content words than on function words, more frequently on multisyllabic words than on monosyllabic words, and more frequently at the end of a phrase than in initial or medial position. A direct therapy approach, aimed first at identification and then at suppression of the final repetitions, resulted in complete elimination of these repetitions. The origin of these word-final disfluencies and their resemblance to palilalia are discussed.
Van Borsel
John
J
Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium. john.vanborsel@ugent.be
Geirnaert
Elke
E
Van Coster
Rudy
R
D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010699:Phonation; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013070:Speech Therapy; D013342:Stuttering / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014833:Voice Quality