The Relationship Between Voluntary Non-Fluency and Stuttering

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Abstract
24 stutterers, 8 [female][female] and 16 [male][male] d", age ranging from 3 yrs. to 22 yrs., who were undergoing corrective work in the Speech Clinic of the Univ. of Iowa, read 3 exptl. passages in which they were required to read with non-fluency varying percentages of the words, and then to proceed immediately to control passages on which no voluntary non-fluency was required (non-fluency or voluntary stuttering consists of repetitive movements of initial consonants and their sounds at a controlled rate[long dash]a sort of "fake" stuttering). Conclusions reached were as follows: The frequency of stuttering in the immediate context of words which are produced with voluntary non-fluency is significantly less in passages in which 50 or 25% of the words are non-fluently produced than in passages in which either 0 or 5% of the words are non-fluently spoken voluntarily; this differential effect is not evident in the overall frequency of stuttering on those control passages which immediately followed the exptl. passages; significantly greater amts. of stuttering occur on words which have the larger number of the following attributes[long dash]initial consonant, initial position in the sentence, word length > 5 letters, and grammatical function of noun, verb, adjective or adverb; the conclusion concerning stuttering in relation to word weights also applies to errors in producing words with voluntary non-fluency, more such errors occurring on words in the higher weight categories.

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