Effect of Normal and Fast Articulatory Rates on Stuttering Frequency

Abstract

The effect of speech rate on stuttering frequency was investigated with 20 stutterers. Subjects read two different 300 syllable passages at a normal and fast speech rate. Stuttering counts and articulatory rate was determined for each speech sample. Articulatory rates were derived from portions of the passages which were perceptually fluent. No statistically significant difference in stuttering frequency was found between the two speech rate conditions (p = .16) while a significant difference was observed for articulatory rate (p = .0007). These findings suggest that increased articulatory rate does not determine stuttering frequency with the same consistency as does decreased articulatory rate. It was concluded that a single explanation of the relationship between speech rate and stuttering frequency in terms of speech timing complexity is inadequate.