Davis, Stephen Roger; (2002) Factors in the identification and treatment of stuttering. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

A large number of children with a diagnosis of stuttering will recover, often without formal treatment. This recovery pattern highlights the importance of a clear, early diagnosis and has implications for therapeutic practice. This thesis investigated three factors that could assist speech and language therapists in their diagnosis and treatment of children who stutter (CWS). Those factors were social, motor and speech skills. A pilot study investigating a fourth factor, communication attitude, is reported as an appendix. All factors were investigated from the perspective of the EXPLAN model of fluency failure. EXPLAN suggests that a combination of speech timing and phonological difficulty is an important source of fluency failures. The investigation into the social skills of CWS indicated that there is a trend for CWS to hold a lower social position to that of age matched controls. CWS were more likely to be bullied at school than their peers. The relationship between stuttering severity and social status was not significant. The motor skills study, using a battery of tests of cerebellar function (Dow & Moruzzi, 1958), indicated that CWS showed a deficit in performance on balance/posture tests at a young age and on complex movement tasks at teenage when compared to age matched controls. These differences are discussed with relation to auditory and cerebellar function. The fluency of a group of CWS was examined using phonological word analysis (Au-Yeung & Howell, 1998). Five children were producing predominantly part- word repetitions at initial assessment. Four of these children had persisted in their stutter when followed up three years later. Results suggest that information regarding motor skills and linguistic analysis of speech may be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of CWS. The results of the experimental work are discussed with relation to their theoretical and clinical significance.

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