[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Anelise Bohnen
Date: 15 Oct 2011
Time: 21:52:21 -0500
Remote Name: 189.63.133.13
Dear Katherine 1. About high frequency stuttered sounds: I wanted to know not only about the most frequent phonemes stuttered on, but also their intrinsic characteristics such as voice x voiceless, short x long… But I was advised against analyzing them due to the "frequency of use" factor. There is no good and reliable method to analyze the frequency of use factor in BP. So, I still have all the experimental data but did not analyze these characteristics. Yours is the second question I receive about stuttering and phoneme frequency. I think I will have to go back and look at this again, finding a way of reaching reliable results. 2. All speech samples were collected during the first interview with adults or first interaction with children. Nobody had received treatment before. This was a condition to be part of the investigation. 3. I did not look at typologies in the way you are asking. I hypothesized that stuttering would worsen with age. So, I compared untreated children who stuttered with untreated adults who stuttered in the same time interval. It was not a before and after comparison. Once I did not find significant differences between children and adults, I could not say that stuttering gets worse with age. It does become chronic, though, and the reactions to or against it also become more intense. These unpleasant reactions are transformed into memories and usually end up in avoidance, fear, etc. This is why I attempted to raise the memory issue. You see, we might agree that most prolongations are less noticeable than blocks and repetitions. If so, why adults did prolong less then children? Why is this not the other way around? If blocks and repetitions are so strikingly evident, adults would prefer prolongations instead, but I could not demonstrate this. Much more research is needed, right? Thank you so much for your questions. Anelise