title: Non-verbal sensorimotor timing deficits in children and adolescents who stutter.
abstract: There is growing evidence that motor and speech disorders co-occur during development. In the present study, we investigated whether stuttering, a developmental speech disorder, is associated with a predictive timing deficit in childhood and adolescence. By testing sensorimotor synchronization abilities, we aimed to assess whether predictive timing is dysfunctional in young participants who stutter (8-16 years). Twenty German children and adolescents who stutter and 43 non-stuttering participants matched for age and musical training were tested on their ability to synchronize their finger taps with periodic tone sequences and with a musical beat. Forty percent of children and 90% of adolescents who stutter displayed poor synchronization with both metronome and musical stimuli, falling below 2.5% of the estimated population based on the performance of the group without the disorder. Synchronization deficits were characterized by either lower synchronization accuracy or lower consistency or both. Lower accuracy resulted in an over-anticipation of the pacing event in participants who stutter. Moreover, individual profiles revealed that lower consistency was typical of participants that were severely stuttering. These findings support the idea that malfunctioning predictive timing during auditory-motor coupling plays a role in stuttering in children and adolescents.
authors.affiliation: CNRS, Laboratoire Parole et Langage, UMR 7309, Aix-Marseille University Aix-en-Provence, France ; Institut für Deutsche Philologie, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Falk
authors.affiliation: Neurology (Stuttering Therapy), LVR Hospital Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Thilo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Movement to Health Laboratory, EuroMov, University of Montpellier Montpellier, France ; Institut Universitaire de France Paris, France ; Department of Cognitive Psychology, Wyższa Szkoła Finansów i Zarządzania Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dalla Bella
keywords: auditory–motor coupling; children; developmental stuttering; predictive timing; rhythm; sensorimotor synchronization