Phonological processing in stuttering and non-stuttering children

Abstract

During language development, the increase of complexity and length of children's utterance may exceed their speech production abilities. There is evidence that language acquisition and phonological development delay may be linked to the risk of persistent stuttering. Stutterers show higher occurrence of phonological disorders (30%) when compared to non-stutterers (2-6%). Objective: To verify possible correlations between developmental stuttering and phonological processing in stuttering and non-stuttering children. Methods: This project's sample will be composed of 30 children. The experimental group (GE) will be composed of 15 children with developmental stuttering diagnosis and the control group (GC) will be composed of 15 children without communication complaints. Both groups will be submitted to the following speech and language evaluation procedures: Analysis of typical and atypical disfluencies and utterance rate, phonological evaluation (Phonology Test - ABFW, Wertzner, 2000), phonological processing evaluation (Phonological Awareness Test - Sequential Evaluation Instrument - CONFIAS; Moojen et al., 2003; Phonological Memory Test - Brazilian Children's Test of Pseudoword Repetition - BCPR; Santos e Bueno, 2003 and Rapid Nomination Test - Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing - CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen and Rashotte, 1999).