The Influence of Propositionality On Stuttering

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Abstract
26 stutterers, 23 d" and 3 [female], ranging in age from 17 to 20 yrs*. with an average age of 18.4 yrs., read a word list of 130 words, a nonsense selection of 130 words, and a meaningful paragraph of 130 words taken from a letter written by the late President Roosevelt. Each selection contained the same 20 adjectives and the same number of parts of speech in all. Some duplication of words occurred of course in the 3 selections. The increase in the propositional value of the oral reading selection resulted in an increase in stuttering on nouns, adverbs, verbs, and adjectives. The increase in propositional value of the oral reading selection results in a decrease in stuttering on pronouns, conjunctions and articles, with no significant difference with respect to prepositions. In general, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs were stuttered more than pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and articles. There is a greater difference in % of words stuttered between a meaningful and a nonsense selection than between a nonsense selection and the reading of a list of words. An increase in propositional value produced a greater range of % of stuttered words among the various parts of speech. The authors conclude generally that the incidence of stuttering events is directly related to the meaningfulness of speech content. Stutterers have the greatest difficulty in the utterance of propositional speech.