The present investigation is planned as a preparatory phase for a subsequent large-scale project that will involve several research centers. The long term goals of this study are to provide quantified data on the developmental course of childhood stuttering with particular reference to factors associated with its trends of recovery. Such data will substantially improve understanding of the formative stages of this potentially serious communicative disorder. Moreover, they will provide a basis for differential diagnosis and early identification of risk/nonrisk incipient stutterers.
The specific aims are to test the hypotheses that recovery is related to subjects' (1) symptom pattern/severity, (2) familial history of stuttering, (3) sex. To conduct the investigation, many characteristics of stuttering will be observed and recorded periodically from 40 young stutterers over a two-year period beginning shortly after the onset of the disorder. Data will consist of case histories, genetic analyses based on pedigrees, frequency counts of stuttering (disfluencies and secondary characteristics) in taperecorded samples, severity rating, acoustical features of speech signals, and tests of speech and language development. Some comparisons will be made with 40 control nonstuttering children. Most importantly, however, at the end of the two-year follow-up, subgroups of stutterers formed in relation to genetic loading, sex and symptomatology, will be compared in terms of the rate and degree of remission which occurred.
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