A preliminary investigation of phonological encoding skills in children who stutter

Purpose: The present study investigated phonological encoding skills in children who stutter (CWS) and those who do not (CNS). Participants were 9 CWS (M=. 11.8 years, SD=. 1.5) and 9 age and sex matched CNS (M=. 11.8 years, SD=. 1.5). Method: Participants monitored target phonemes located at syllable onsets and offsets of bisyllabic words. Performance in the phoneme monitoring task was compared to an auditory tone monitoring task. Results: Repeated measures analysis of the response time data revealed significant Group×. Task×. Position interaction with the CWS becoming progressively slower than the CNS in monitoring subsequent phonemes located within the bisyllabic words; differences were not observed in the auditory tone monitoring task. Repeated measures analysis of the error data indicated that the groups were comparable in the percent errors in phoneme vs. tone monitoring. The CWS group was also significantly slower in a picture naming task compared to the CNS. Conclusions: Present findings suggest that CWS experience temporal asynchronies in one or more processes leading up to phoneme monitoring. The findings are interpreted within the scope of contemporary theories of stuttering.Educational objectives: At the end of this activity the reader will be able to: (a) discuss the literature on phonological encoding skills in children who stutter, (b) identify theories of phonological encoding in stuttering, (c) define the process of phonological encoding and its implications for fluent speech, (d) suggest future areas of research in the investigation of phonological encoding abilities in children who stutter.