The study investigated the reaction times in the fluent speech utterances of 20 adult stutterers and 20 nonstutterers. Results indicated that reaction times for longer utterances and for utterances requiring minimal preparation were longer for stutterers than for nonstutterers, suggesting stutterers may have difficulty in motor programing of…

Cohesion strategies used by three normal and three head-injured adults were examined in both conversational and narrative conditions. Head-injured subjects used different cohesion patterns than normal adults in both conditions; and both groups used different cohesion patterns in the conversational and narrative conditions. (Author/DB)

Aphasic (N=15) and non-brain-damaged adults listened to and retold two narrative stories three times in succession. Both aphasic and non-brain-damaged subjects were affected by story structure and increased the amount of information retold across retellings. Non-brain-damaged subjects retold slightly more (statistically insignificant) information…

A theory of neurolinguistic function is proposed to explain fluency and the production of stuttered speech disruptions. Stuttering results when the speaker is under time pressure and is unaware of the cause of dyssynchrony between the linguistic and paralinguistic components of speech which are processed by different neural systems but converge on…

Among results of a comparison of 20 language disordered and 20 control children (ages 7-10) were that only the nonhandicapped children changed the number of complete episodes narrated as a function of the listener's shared information, while neither group altered the accuracy of conjunctive use as a function of the listener. (Author/DB)

Investigation of the impact of speaking rate variations in the linguistic input provided to 32 school-age children (half with specific language impairment (SLI) found both SLI and typical children had similar recognition accuracy, but SLI children had significantly more difficulty with the production of novel words presented at a fast rate.…

Principal findings were that pictures of objects with more frequently occurring names were named more rapidly than those with less frequently occurring names; that language-impaired children named pictures less rapidly than chronological-age peers but more rapidly than language-age peers; and effects of frequency of occurrence were comparable for…

Preschool children were paired in 12 speaker-listener dyads in which the speaker described common familiar items, and the listener attempted to guess their identity. Postfeedback, the speakers used longer, more informative descriptions for items originally failed and shorter, less informative descriptions for items successfully guessed on the…

This study developed a multidimensional topic analysis sensitive to patterns in topic management appropriate for use with head-injured adults. Language samples of a closed-head-injured adult and a matched normal adult were compared. Results demonstrated the analysis' potential to reliably identify, quantify, and describe differences between…

Significant correlations between two speech-sound discrimination (SSD) tests and ITPA expressive language skills subtests and insignificant correlations between SSD tests and subtests measuring receptive and associative language skills indicated that ability to discriminate speech sounds is more related to speaking than to understanding or…

Production of grammatical morphemes was examined in free speech samples from 34 4-year-olds with history of slow expressive language development (SELD) and control group. Both the SELD children who had caught up in mean length of utterance by age four and those who had not had acquired fewer grammatical morphemes than controls, though acquisition…

This study examined keyword signing (KWS), a communication approach used with nonspeaking individuals. Acoustic measures and judgments of 20 adult listeners were used to evaluate KWS and Spoken-Only narratives. KWS narratives were produced with a slower articulation rate, because of increased pause and speech segment duration and increased pause…