Joseph G. Sheehan

Stuttering behavior: A phonetic analysis☆

Abstract Phonetic transcriptions were made of 500 stutterings, 25 each from 20 adult stutters. The findings were: 1. 1. Repetition and prolongation were the only behaviors common to all. 2. 2. The average duration of 1.6 sec, with a standard deviation of 3 sec. 3. 3. The mean length of the prolongations was 0.87 sec, with a standard deviation of 0.72 sec. 4. 4. More than 4 out of 5 repetitions—83%—were phoneme and syllable repetitions. 5. 5. Phrase repetition was comparatively rare, comprising only 5% of the repetitions. 6. 6. There was a strong tendency for various stuttering behaviors to be aligned into a definite sequence, or stuttering pattern. 7. 7. Ninety-six percent of the stuttering occured in relation to initial sounds. 8. 8. One-half of the blocks involved some degree of stuttering on the wrong sound. 9. 9. Stutterers frequently continued to stutter on words they had already said. 10. 10. Stutterers described as their “hard sounds” the initial sounds they actually uttered successfully, to the exclusion of the remainder of the word. 11. 11. Stuttering was seen chiefly as a disorder of release , with irrelevancies and crutches employed as instrumental acts to satisfy fear and bring about termination of the block.

Onset of stuttering and recovery

Abstract In two speech screening surveys undertaken at the University of California, Berkeley, spontaneous recovery had occurred in 80 per cent of those who had ever had a definite problem of stuttering. Comparisons of this group of recovered stutterers with an active group supplemented by stutterers from clinics at UCLA and Colorado produced these results: 1. Recovered stutterers differed in symptoms at onset, showing syllable repetitions rather than complete blockings, but not in time of onset. 2. Familial incidence distinguished stutterers from normal-speaking controls, but not active stutterers from recovered stutterers. 3. Recovery was negatively related both to severity and to receiving public school speech therapy. 4. Active stutterers in university clinic therapy felt it had helped them improve and recommended it for others. No Ss attributed improvement to public school therapy, or recommended it. 5. Active stutterers were more likely to have incorporated stuttering into their self-concepts. 6. Recovered stutterers differed from active stutterers in methods used to cope with the problem.

Self-disclosure in relation to psychotherapist expertise and ethnicity.

The self-disclosure styles of Mexican Americans and their possible role in the limited participation of Mexican Americans in mental health services were explored. Ninety-four Mexican American and 93 Anglo American junior college students listened to one of four therapist introductions, then responded to questionnaires designed to measure self disclosure and self acceptance. Both groups indicated a substantial willingness to disclose about themselves to therapists. Mexican Americans proved lower in self-disclosure scores than Anglo Americans. Mexican Americans were found to disclose less to Mexican American therapists than did Anglo Americans to Anglo American therapists. Sex differences in self-disclosure were negligible. Both Mexican Americans and Anglo Americans scored in the direction of high self-acceptance. The findings held for comparable socioeconomic levels.

Stuttering and assertion training

Abstract This study was undertaken with the aim of determining whether specific assertation training as advocated by Wolpe and other behavior therapists would provide a useful addition to current therapy methods. Twenty-four adult stutterers, matched for severity of stuttering and initial degree of assertiveness, were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions. The first group received behavioral assertion training along lines advocated by Wolpe. The second group received an insight-oriented, feeling-clarification approach. The third group received parallel sessions reinforcing Avoidance-Reduction Therapy already in use at UCLA clinic. Analysis of variance revealed no significant differences during the course of the experiment in severity of stuttering as measured by self-ratings, clinician ratings, or frequency of stuttering during readings of standard passages. Factor analysis of a battery of tests designed to tap assertiveness and other personality dimensions revealed no differences pre and post. Our conclusion was that for stutterers already receiving an action-oriented Avoidance-Reduction Therapy, specific “assertion training” along lines advocated by behavior therapists did not add anything of distinctive value.

Role perception in stuttering

Abstract The role perceptions of adult stutterers were studied by means of the Sarbin-Hardyck Stick Figure Test. Forty stutterers, enrolled in the Psychology Speech Clinic at UCLA, were compared with forty controls from introductory psychology classes at UCLA. The controls were randomly selected from a larger sample to provide a matching for the 3:1 sex ratio in the stutterer group, so that thirty were male and ten were female. Within the stutterer group, neither age nor amount of education produced significant differences, and the means were close in each case. For data analysis purposes, each S obtained a “Stick Figure Score.” reflecting the number of the cards on which he chose the modal response. Analysis of variance revealed no significant differences between the array of scores thus obtained for the clinic group and the control group. Thus the chief finding was that stutterers did not differ from nonstutterers in the accuracy of their role perception as measured by the Stick Figure Test. This finding calls into question a previous report by Buscaglia (1962), who found the responses of stutterers to be closer to those of schizophrenics than those of normals. Further findings in this study were that males did not differ in accuracy of role perception from females, despite the well-established fact that stuttering is mostly a male affliction. When the stutterer sample was divided and comparisons were made between those who were rated as improving most with those rated as improving least, no differences appeared. Similarly negative findings were obtained for judged severity and for length of time spent in the clinic. The results were in line with those of many previous studies and reviews in showing that stutterers are not demonstrably different from nonstutterers on general dimensions of personality.