Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Stuttering;

Abstract

The relationship between stuttering and linguistic stress was observed within four adult stutterers. A specially designed test passage was read by each of the subjects five successive times. The passage contained 18 test syllables, nine were stressed and nine were non-stressed as indicated by dictionary diacritical markings. Six measurements of acoustic indicators of stress, including fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration, were obtained for each subject for the fluent adapted productions of the test syllables and the immediately preceding syllables. Correlated t-tests were computed to determine if significant differences existed between stressed and non-stressed phonetically matched syllables for each of the six acoustic measurements. Stuttering frequency was determined for each subject from taped samples of the first reading of the test passage. A sign test was calculated to determine if there was a significantly greater amount of stuttering on stressed syllables. The acoustic measures were inconsistent across subjects with respect to manner of indicating stress. For three subjects, intensity change from the preceding syllable to the target syllable were significantly greater for the stressed target syllable. For another subject, frequency change was the significant variable. Results of the sign test indicated that there was not a greater amount of stuttering on stressed syllables. Possible explanations for the results were discussed. Implications for further research in this area were also discussed.

Year of Submission

1986

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Communicative Disorders

First Advisor

Carlin F. Hageman

Second Advisor

Bruce L. Plakke

Third Advisor

Harley E. Erickson

Comments

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Date Original

1986

Object Description

1 PDF file (98 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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