Does Excessive Attention to Speech Contribute to Stuttering? A Preliminary Study With a Reading Comprehension Task

Abstract

People who stutter (PWS) presumably pay excessive attention to monitoring their speech, possibly exacerbating speech fluency. Using a reading comprehension task, we investigated whether or not PWS devote excessive attention to their speech. Methods Eleven PWS and 11 people who do not stutter (PNS) read passages in silent and oral reading conditions with and without noise masking, then answered comprehension questions. For PWS, auditory noise masking and silent reading would presumably divert their attention away from their speech. Results The comprehension performance of PWS was lower in the oral-no-masking condition than the oral-masking and silent-no-masking conditions. In contrast, there were no significant differences in the comprehension performance of PNS between the four conditions. Conclusions PWS had poor comprehension when listening to their speech, suggesting excessive attention to speech and limited attention to concurrent cognitive tasks.