Tasko Stephen M, McClean Michael D, Runyan Charles M
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Western Michigan University, 1903 West Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5355, United States.
J Commun Disord. 2007 Jan-Feb;40(1):42-65. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2006.04.002.
Participants of stuttering treatment programs provide an opportunity to evaluate persons who stutter as they demonstrate varying levels of fluency. Identifying physiologic correlates of altered fluency levels may lead to insights about mechanisms of speech disfluency. This study examined respiratory, orofacial kinematic and acoustic measures in 35 persons who stutter prior to and as they were completing a 1-month intensive stuttering treatment program. Participants showed a marked reduction in stuttering severity as they completed the treatment program. Coincident with reduced stuttering severity, participants increased the amplitude and duration of speech breaths, reduced the rate of lung volume change during inspiration, reduced the amplitude and speed of lip movements early in the test utterance, increased lip and jaw movement durations, and reduced syllable rate. A multiple regression model that included two respiratory measures and one orofacial kinematic measure accounted for 62% of the variance in changes in stuttering severity. Finally, there was a weak but significant tendency for speech of participants with the largest reductions in stuttering severity to be rated as more unnatural as they completed the treatment program.
口吃治疗项目的参与者提供了一个机会，来评估口吃者在展现出不同流畅程度时的情况。识别流畅程度改变的生理相关因素，可能会带来关于言语不流畅机制的见解。本研究在35名口吃者参加为期1个月的强化口吃治疗项目之前及治疗期间，对他们的呼吸、口面部运动学和声学指标进行了检测。随着完成治疗项目，参与者的口吃严重程度显著降低。与口吃严重程度降低同时出现的是，参与者增加了言语呼吸的幅度和时长，降低了吸气时肺容积变化的速率，在测试话语开始时降低了嘴唇运动的幅度和速度，增加了嘴唇和下颌的运动时长，并降低了音节速率。一个包含两项呼吸指标和一项口面部运动学指标的多元回归模型，解释了口吃严重程度变化中62%的方差。最后，口吃严重程度降低幅度最大的参与者在完成治疗项目时，其言语被评定为更不自然，这一趋势虽微弱但显著。
