Abstract

This research study examines the types and frequencies of stuttering, typical disfluencies, and speech rate in Polish-English bilingual adults who stutter across a variety of speaking situations. As Polish and English are phonetically and morpho-syntactically disparate languages, they provide grounds for evaluating the cross-linguistic correlates that may contribute to dysfluency in bilingual individuals who stutter in hopes of contributing to more effective assessment, diagnostic determination, and clinical practice. Participants were all native Polish speakers who spoke English at an intermediate or higher level, were diagnosed with a developmental stutter, and were at least 18 years old. Given that the participants resided in Poland, the study took place via Skype. Participants were first subjected to an English proficiency test, then engaged in three speech tasks (oral reading, monologue, and dialogue) to collect a 200-word speech sample in both Polish and English. Tasks were randomized for language, order of administration, and set of images and conversation topics to minimize the possibility of an order effect. No significant differences in stuttering frequency or stutter types between Polish and English within tasks were found. Similar patterns of stuttering types occurred within Polish and English. There were significantly more typical disfluencies in English compared to Polish during oral reading, with significantly more interjections occurring in the second language during monologue and oral reading. Correlational analyses revealed high positive correlations between stuttering types in all three tasks. Speech rate did not differ significantly between both languages. The percentage of typical disfluencies correlated negatively with dialogue and monologue for language proficiency. Results provide implications for assessment and treatment of stuttering in all languages spoken by the client.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2018

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Vanryckeghem, Martine

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Health and Public Affairs

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Degree Program

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0007220

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0007212

Language

English

Release Date

August 2018

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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