title: Stuttering frequency on meaningful and nonmeaningful words in adults who stutter.
abstract: Previous research has suggested that word meaning can influence the loci and frequency of stuttering moments. Based on this proposition, it was hypothesized that people who stutter will exhibit a larger proportion of stuttering moments on meaningful words when compared to nonmeaningful or nonsense words. In order to test this hypothesis, stuttering frequency was examined among 9 English-speaking adults who stutter as they read a total of 126 words that were either meaningful or nonmeaningful in nature. The results indicated that approximately 117% more stuttering moments were recorded on nonmeaningful words when compared to meaningful words and this difference was statistically significant (p=0.01). These findings challenge the notion that word meaning can be considered as a reliable predictor of stuttering frequency.
authors.affiliation: Multisensory Research and Speech Motor Disorders Laboratory, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Vikram N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Dayalu
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kalinowski
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stuart
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010507:Periodicity; D010700:Phonetics; D013342:Stuttering / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014743:Videotape Recording; D014825:Vocabulary