Evaluation of the /a/ and /i/ sounds of 51 adult subjects with various laryngeal disorders indicated that spectrographic noise and curvilinear derivatives of the period standard deviation provided the best predictions of disorder severity. (Author/DB)

Surface electrodes were used to describe the perioral reflexes in seven stutterers and five nonstutterers and electromyographic (EMG) recordings were obtained at electrode sites associated with the orbicularis oris inferior muscle and the depressor labia inferior muscle. A difference was noted in the pattern of reflex response between the two…

Surface electrodes were used to describe the perioral reflexes in seven stutterers and five nonstutterers and electromyographic (EMG) recordings were obtained at electrode sites associated with the orbicularis oris inferior muscle and the depressor labia inferior muscle. A difference was noted in the pattern of reflex response between the two…

Respirometric quotients (RQ), the ratio of oral air volume expended to total volume expended, were obtained from the productions of oral and nasal airflow of 10 speakers with cleft palate, with and without their prosthetic appliances, and 10 normal speakers. Cleft palate speakers without their appliances exhibited the lowest RQ values. (Author/DB)

The paper reviews approaches for the investigation of speech quality in stuttering treatment including speech quality research in areas beyond stuttering, stuttering treatment speech quality research, pertinent findings from nontreatment stuttering research, and issues in recent speech quality management research with stutterers. (Author/DB)

Two experiments were conducted to assess the correlations of residue features with some perceptual properties of voice disorders. Results suggested that residue features may be useful in assessing the degree of vocal impairment, but use of residue features as correlates of voice quality requires further research. (Author/DB)

The study found no significant trends in the change of acoustical durations of stutter- and disfluency-free speech from readings in an adaptation series with four adapting, four nonadapting, and four nonstuttering subjects (all young adults). Findings suggest that adaptation of stuttering and other fluency-inducing conditions are a result of…

This study of 14 school-age children who stuttered found that the average duration of stuttering was approximately three-quarters of a second and was not correlated with age, length of post-onset interval, or frequency of speech disfluency. Stuttering duration may be related to amount of sound prolongations as well as articulatory rate during…

Five men repeated a phrase, beginning at total lung capacity and ending at residual volume. Analysis indicated that voice onset time (VOT) was longer at high lung volumes and shorter at low lung volumes. Lung volume should, therefore, be considered when using VOT as an index of laryngeal behavior in healthy and speech-disordered individuals.…

This study analyzed a conversational speech sample from 10 preschool children stuttering for a year or less and age- and sex-matched nonstuttering children. Analysis indicated no significant between-group differences for either the duration of acoustically measured sound/syllable repetitions and sound prolongations or the number of repeated units…

This study applied four direct magnitude estimation (DME) standards to the evaluation of speech from four individuals with dysarthria and three neurologically normal speakers. It found a fixed set of sentence-level utterances was scaled differently depending on the specific standard used. Results are discussed in terms of possible standardization…

Speech-related reaction time measures and fluency-related measures of 24 adult stutterers and a like number of nonstutterers were assessed to determine their diagnostic discriminative power. Findings suggested that both fluency failures and the duration of laryngeal adjustment time are useful diagnostic measures for discriminating stutterers from…

The study found that stutterers (N=10) were significantly more variable than nonstutterers in their ability to achieve stable fundamental frequency diminution patterns in vowels immediately following stop consonants. Stutterers were not significantly different from the nonstutterers in their ability to achieve a stable fundamental frequency over…

This study attempted to empirically demonstrate the validity of a twofold classification of speech disfluency in adult stutterers. Instrumentation and procedures permitting reliable identification and coding of 9 disfluency behaviors were developed and applied to monologues of 180 adult stutterers. Factor analyses supported the two-factor…

Electrodermal activity, peripheral blood flow, and heart rate were recorded from 19 adult stutterers and 19 normal speakers during performance of jaw movements. There were no differences between the two groups of speakers, suggesting that the stutterers did not have abnormally high levels of autonomic activation in speech. (Author/DB)