Disfluency Characteristics of 4- and 5-Year-Old Children Who Stutter and Their Relationship to Stuttering Persistence and Recovery.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to document disfluency behaviors expressed by 4- and 5-year-old children who stutter and to identify whether stuttering characteristics at this age are predictive of later stuttering recovery or persistence. Method We analyzed spontaneous speech samples from 47 children diagnosed with developmental stuttering when they were 4-5 years old. Based on their eventual diagnosis made the final year of participation in the longitudinal study when the children were 6-9 years old, the children were divided into two groups: children who eventually recovered from stuttering ( = 29) and children who were persisting ( = 18).

What Are Predictors for Persistence in Childhood Stuttering?

Over the past 10 years, we (the Purdue Stuttering Project) have implemented longitudinal studies to examine factors related to persistence and recovery in early childhood stuttering. Stuttering develops essentially as an impairment in speech sensorimotor processes that is strongly influenced by dynamic interactions among motor, language, and emotional domains. Our work has assessed physiological, behavioral, and clinical features of stuttering within the motor, linguistic, and emotional domains.