Patrick Finn

Multicultural identification and treatment of stuttering: A continuing need for research☆

Abstract This article presents one view of the past, present, and future of multicultural studies of stuttering. Historical issues are reviewed, and current issues about the multicultural or cross-cultural identification and treatment of stuttering are then considered in light of that history. It appears from this combined analysis of historical and current trends that many multicultural discussions about stuttering continue to be based on ethnocentric speculation and on ideas related to diagnosogenic theory, rather than on dependable empirical or clinical knowledge. Suggestions are provided in the form of issues to be considered and, more importantly, in the form of areas that will need considerably more research if this disorder is to be approached from a truly multicultural perspective.

Children Recovered From Stuttering Without Formal Treatment: Perceptual Assessment of Speech Normalcy

The purpose of this study was to determine if the speech of adults who self-judged that they were recovered from stuttering without the assistance of treatment is perceptually different from that o...

Time-Interval Measurement of Stuttering: Systematic Replication of Ingham, Cordes, and Gow (1993)

The study reported in this paper was designed to replicate and extend the results of an earlier study (Ingham, Cordes, & Gow, 1993) that investigated time-interval judgments of stuttering. Results confirmed earlier findings that interjudge agreement is higher for these interval-recording tasks than has been previously reported for event-based analyses of stuttering judgments or for time-interval analyses of event judgments. Results also confirmed an earlier finding that judges with intrajudge agreement levels of 90% or better show higher interjudge agreement than judges with lower intrajudge agreement scores. This study failed to find differences between audiovisual and audio-only judgment conditions; between relatively experienced and relatively inexperienced student judges; and, most importantly, between the judgments made, and the agreement levels achieved, by judges from two different clinical research settings. The implications of these findings for attempts to develop a reliable measurement method for stuttering are discussed.

An evaluation of the effects of supplemental “fluency” training during maintenance

Abstract The voice onset time (VOT) of two groups of treated stutterers and a normal-speaking group was assessed by spectrographic analysis. Both groups of stutterers had significantly slower VOT than the normal speakers. The experimental group of stutterers was given 8 wk of “fluency” training designed to remediate characteristics of speech identified as related to “tenuous” fluency. The control group of stutterers received ongoing maintenance therapy. Posttreatment VOT was assessed. The experimental stuttering group had significantly decreased their VOT in the direction of the normal-speaking group, whereas the control group of stutterers had a greater VOT between pre- and posttreatment. The implication of these results for the maintenance of fluency are discussed.