Disfluencies at the Onset of Stuttering

This study describes disfluencies in rare speech samples obtained from young children in temporal proximity to their stuttering onsets. Ten 2 and 3 year olds diagnosed by parents to have begun stuttering for periods of 2 months or less and 10 matched normally speaking children served as subjects. Analyses of spontaneous speech indicated that stutterers were three times more disfluent than nonstutterers. Part-word repetitions and sound prolongations were found to distinguish the two groups significantly. Stutterers were also found to have significantly more repetition units per instance of disfluency than control subjects. Theoretical and practical conclusions are discussed.