title: Phonological neighborhood density in the picture naming of young children who stutter: preliminary study.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of phonological neighborhood density on the speech reaction time (SRT) and errors of children who do and do not stutter during a picture-naming task. Participants were nine 3-5-year-old children who stutter (CWS) matched in age and gender to nine children who do not stutter (CWNS). Initial analyses indicated that both CWNS and CWS were significantly faster (i.e., exhibited shorter SRTs) and more accurate on phonologically sparse than phonologically dense words, findings consistent with those found with older children (Newman & German, 2002). Further analyses indicated that talker group differences in receptive language scores weakened these findings. These preliminary findings were taken to suggest that phonological neighborhood density appears to influence the picture-naming speed and accuracy of preschool-aged children.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The reader will learn about and be able to: (1) recognize the relevance of examining phonological variables in relation to childhood stuttering; and (2) describe the method of measuring speech reaction times and errors during a picture-naming task as a means of assessing linguistic skills.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center for Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences and Disorders, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 1114 19th Avenue South; Nashville, TN 37212, USA. hayley.s.arnold@vanderbilt.edu
authors.forename: Hayley S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Edward G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Conture
authors.forename: Ralph N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Ohde
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013342:Stuttering / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis