title: Speech-Language Dissociations, Distractibility, and Childhood Stuttering.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study investigated the relation among speech-language dissociations, attentional distractibility, and childhood stuttering.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were 82 preschool-age children who stutter (CWS) and 120 who do not stutter (CWNS). Correlation-based statistics (Bates, Appelbaum, Salcedo, Saygin, & Pizzamiglio, 2003) identified dissociations across 5 norm-based speech-language subtests. The Behavioral Style Questionnaire Distractibility subscale measured attentional distractibility. Analyses addressed (a) between-groups differences in the number of children exhibiting speech-language dissociations; (b) between-groups distractibility differences; (c) the relation between distractibility and speech-language dissociations; and (d) whether interactions between distractibility and dissociations predicted the frequency of total, stuttered, and nonstuttered disfluencies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  More preschool-age CWS exhibited speech-language dissociations compared with CWNS, and more boys exhibited dissociations compared with girls. In addition, male CWS were less distractible than female CWS and female CWNS. For CWS, but not CWNS, less distractibility (i.e., greater attention) was associated with more speech-language dissociations. Last, interactions between distractibility and dissociations did not predict speech disfluencies in CWS or CWNS.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present findings suggest that for preschool-age CWS, attentional processes are associated with speech-language dissociations. Future investigations are warranted to better understand the directionality of effect of this association (e.g., inefficient attentional processes → speech-language dissociations vs. inefficient attentional processes ← speech-language dissociations).
authors.forename: Chagit E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: Edward G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Conture
authors.forename: Tedra A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Walden
authors.forename: Warren E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Lambert
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D015588:Observer Variation; D013062:Speech Articulation Tests; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013342:Stuttering / Q000175:diagnosis*