William H. Perkins

Effectiveness of a DAF conditioning program for adolescent and adult stutterers.

Abstract The effectiveness of a 90-hr treatment program with 27 adolescent and adult stutterers was studied. The treatment, conversational rate control therapy, consisted of a conditioning program that employed DAF to establish slow stutter-free speech that was subsequently increased in speed to a normal rate. Stimulus control was then generalized to the everyday environment. Recordings of easy and difficult speaking situations were made before and after treatment. Stuttering was substantially reduced for all clients in the clinic and in everyday speaking situations.

Learning from negative outcomes in stuttering therapy: II. An epiphany of failures

Abstract Proceeding on the premise that learning advances on the feet of failure, a litany of therapeutic failures with stutterers across 3 decades is recounted. The basis for these failures included the assumptions that stuttering is a neurotic symptom; that “lucky fluency” can be maintained permanently; that a fluent drone is preferable to stuttering; that controlled fluency, once established, can be maintained permanently; that a proper task for clinicians is to motivate clients to achieve and preserve fluency; that the clinician has the responsibility for marching clients through their therapeutic paces; and that stuttering is punishing to the stutterer, so it is not preserved by reinforcement. Unfortunately, more has probably been learned about what does not work than what does.

Dysfluency characteristics identified by listeners as "stuttering" and "stutterer".

Abstract This study was designed to measure the effect of variation in dysfluency characteristics on listener evaluation of “stuttering” and of the speaker as “stutterer” Eighteen speech patterns composed of various combinations of type, frequency, and manner of dysfluency were judged by a panel of public school teachers. For judgments “stuttering,” type was the identifying characteristic, repetition being viewed significantly more directly as “stuttering” than was hesitation. For judgments of “stutterer,” frequency of dysfluency the major factor. Identical dysfluency characteristics were judged both as “stuttering” and respoken by a “stutterer” in approximately three-fourths of the judgments. When “stuttering” but not “stutterer” was judged, identifying characteristics could involve type, frequency, or manner of dysfluency. In the rare instances where judgments of “stutterer” but not “stuttering” were made, type and frequency were factors.

Early syllable dysfluency in stutterers and nonstutterers: a preliminary report.

Abstract Four preschool stutterers and 20 nonstutterers were compared to determine if children who develop stuttering differ from nonstutters in frequency of syllable dysfluency. This preliminary report points to the possibility that children who develop stuttering are less able from the outset to manage the fluent flow of syllables in their speech; the mean percent syllables dysfluent for the stutterers was 9.88, whereas for the nonstutterers it was only 1.24.

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The question of what is meant by &dquo;slowing down&dquo; is an important one since many programs for child and adult stutterers utilize some form of rate reduction. Basically, decreases in speech or reading rate can be achieved in either or both of the following ways: (1) increase the frequency and duration of pauses that are taken between the words being uttered (e.g. &dquo;I ... am ... a ... man); (2) prolong the continuant sounds contained within an utterance (e.g. &dquo;III