Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Children--Language; Speech disorders in children; Stuttering in children;
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate the possibility that disfluent preschoolers manifest a more impulsive cognitive tempo as compared to a language-matched control group of subjects. Nine disfluent and nine control subjects responded to two tasks designed to measure response latency from which a measure of impulsiveness could be determined. One was a classic match-to-sample figures task and the other involved verbal descriptions of ·irregularities represented in a set of pictures. Response latencies (in ms) and the number of errors made were tallied for the first task and response latencies were measured in 1/100 second for the second task. Study results indicated that the two groups did not differ significantly in their performance on these two tasks. Furthermore, no relationship was found between the fluency group to which the subjects were assigned and the cognitive tempo category into which they fell based on scores obtained on the match-to-sample figures task. Clinically, these results imply that disfluent preschoolers do not respond more impulsively than fluent preschoolers to either a matching task or to a verbal task which requires an amount of linguistic planning. Several limitations of the present study, however, indicate that the search for a relationship between these two variables should not be abandoned. Statistical computations revealed some discrepancies between the two groups of subjects. Several correlations between language measures were found to be high for the disfluent group which is in keeping with what is known about language development. These same correlations were comparatively low for . the control group, indicating that the normal acy of the control group with respect to language development needs to be questioned. Another limitation involves the amount of challenge brought to the children by the verbal task. The predictable nature of the subjects' responses to this task raised the question as to how much linguistic planning was actually required of the subjects. Further research in this area should consider these limitations in a continued search for a relationship between preschool disfluency and cognitive tempo.
Year of Submission
1985
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Communicative Disorders
First Advisor
Clifford L. Highnam
Second Advisor
Donna Raschke
Third Advisor
Carlin F. Hageman
Date Original
1985
Object Description
1 PDF file (65 leaves)
Copyright
©1985 Sue Ann Kenlee Hook
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Hook, Sue Ann Kenlee, "Response Latency in Fluent and Disfluent Preschoolers" (1985). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2952.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2952
Comments
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