L. De Nil

Voice onset times of stuttering and nonstuttering children: The influence of externally and linguistically imposed time pressure

Abstract Differences between stutterers and nonstutterers have been observed less consistently in voice onset time (VOT) than in voice reaction time (VRT) studies. These two experimental paradigms differ in the extent to which time pressure is present during speech. This led to the present study, which was designed to investigate the influence of time pressure on the VOTs of 10 young stutterers and a like number of age- and sex-matched nonstutterers. The children were instructed to read a series of single syllable target words first at a self-selected pace and next as quickly as possible (external time pressure). In addition, artivulatory complexity of the target words was varied systematically (linguistic time pressure). No statistically significant differences were found between the mean VOTs of the stuttering and nonstuttering children. However, the VOTs of the stuttering children were significantly more variable than those of the nonstutterers. None of the group x time pressure interactions reached statistical significance. The present data provide support for the position that VOT and VRT tasks assess different types of speech motor skills.