Acoustic Measures of Emotion in School-Age Children Who Stutter: Findings From a Single Subject

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to encourage and justify the examination of acoustic measures of emotion (mean fundamental frequency [F0], F0 range, jitter, and shimmer) from school-age children who stutter (CWS) in a novel procedure combining psychophysiological measures of stress with acoustic analysis. Method One school-age CWS (aged 11;9 [years;months]) completed a cognitively stressful speech-language task and a control speech-language task. Vocal acoustic samples were collected during the stressful task and the control task. These samples were later analyzed for F0, F0 range, jitter, and shimmer. Physiological measures of emotional arousal, including electrodermal response frequency and electrodermal response amplitude, were also recorded prior to, during, and after each condition for manipulation check purposes. Physiological measures of emotion regulation, indexed by mean heart rate variability, were also collected prior to and after each condition for manipulation check purposes. Results Findings from the psychophysiological measures suggest that the CWS experienced increased stress during the stress-inducing task. Acoustic measures indicate that the CWS reduced rather than increased her mean F0, F0 range, jitter, and shimmer only for high vowels /i u/ during the control task compared to stressful task. Conclusions Overall, these pilot findings support the need for further study of vocal acoustic and psychophysiological measures of emotion from CWS as well as children who do not stutter.