An exploration of lexical selection in adults who stutter

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: People who stutter (PWS) are able to anticipate a moment of stuttering. We wished to explore whether this anticipation might be reflected by either unusual word choice and/or delayed word production during a single-word confrontation naming task. METHOD: Nine PWS and nine age- and sex-matched fluent controls completed the single-word confrontation-naming task. Groups were compared on numbers of word-finding and fluency errors, response latency, and naming accuracy, measured against a novel ‘usuality’ criterion. Regression modelling of response accuracy and latency was conducted. RESULTS: The groups did not differ on naming task performance, except for a greater frequency of response latency errors in the PWS group. For both groups, responses containing word-finding or fluency errors were more likely to be non-usual names, and these were associated with longer latencies than accurate responses. For PWS, latency was positively related to participant age, and accuracy inversely related to stuttering severity. CONCLUSIONS: The findings provide insights into word substitution as a generalized behaviour, its function, and associated time-cost. Group-specific relationships imply greater sensitivity in PWS to changing demands and capacities, and highlight the complexity of interactions between physical stuttering behaviour and verbal avoidance.