IALP Student Award 2010
Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64
DOI: 10.1159/000319913
Speech Disfluency Types of Fluent and
Stuttering Individuals: Age Effects
Fabiola Staróbole Juste Claudia Regina Furquim de Andrade
Department of Physiotherapy, Communication Science and Disorders, Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine,
University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Key Words
Stuttering ⴢ Fluency ⴢ Speech disfluency types
Abstract
Objective: The purpose of the present study was to quantify
and compare the typology of speech disruptions presented
by stuttering and fluent Brazilian Portuguese-speaking chil-
dren, adolescents and adults. Subjects and Methods: Par-
ticipants were 150 individuals, with ages between 4.0 and
49.11 years, who were divided into six groups: children who
stutter (n = 25), children who do not stutter (n = 25), adoles-
cents who stutter (n = 25), adolescents who do not stutter
(n = 25), adults who stutter (n = 25) and adults who do not
stutter (n = 25). For each participant, the frequency of stut-
tering-like disfluencies (SLD) and other disfluencies was cal-
culated based on the video recordings of spontaneous
speech samples. Results: The results obtained for SLD were
significant when comparing stuttering and fluent individu-
als. In children who stutter, adolescents who stutter, and
adults who stutter, a higher frequency of SLD was found.
Other disfluencies did not differentiate the groups. Conclu-
sion: The age factor did not qualify quantitatively any of the
groups, but indicated qualitative differences (in terms of the
type of speech disfluencies) between groups. The results re-
vealed similarities when compared with studies carried out
in different languages. Copyright © 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel
Student Supervisor: Claudia Regina Furquim de Andrade.
© 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel
1021–7762/11/0632–0057$38.00/0
Fax +41 61 306 12 34
E-Mail karger@karger.ch Accessible online at:
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Published online: October 7, 2010
Introduction
Over the years, much research has been completed ex-
amining the speech disfluencies of normally fluent indi-
viduals (children, adolescents and adults). Although the
descriptions of speech disfluencies have been extensive,
especially for children and adults, these investigations al-
most exclusively focused on understanding the speech of
English-speaking individuals from Anglo-European cul-
tures. Because stuttering is a fluency disorder observed
across languages and cultures, there is value in under-
standing the disfluent speech of individuals from cultur-
ally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
A central issue for the diagnosis and treatment of stut-
tering is to understand that people who stutter, just like
people who do not stutter, present quantitative and qual-
itative variations in stuttering. This knowledge decreases
the chances that the clinician will be fooled into thinking
that the client’s change during therapy is due to therapy
itself when it may be nothing more than ‘natural’ varia-
tions in behavior. To avoid this, it is important to know
about the central tendency (average, median, or mode) of
a person’s stuttering [1].
The differentiation of subtypes of speech disruptions
assumed a central role in the studies about stuttering.
Van Riper [2] suggested that the number of speech disflu-
encies (especially of certain types) is considered the most
important index of stuttering severity.
The types of speech disfluencies most frequently as-
sociated with stuttering are: within-word disfluencies
Fabiola Staróbole Juste
Rua Cipotênea, 51
Cidade Universitária
São Paulo 05360-160 (Brazil)
Tel. +55 11 3091 8406, Fax +55 11 3091 7714, E-Mail fjuste @ usp.br
(i.e., prolongations, blocks and sound and syllable repeti-
tions) and monosyllabic repetitions [1, 3–5]. Between-
word disfluencies (i.e., short monosyllabic whole-word
repetitions, polysyllabic whole-word repetitions, revi-
sions, interjections) occur in the speech of both stuttering
and normally fluent individuals [6–8].
Ambrose and Yairi [3] developed a weighted measure
for stuttering-like disfluencies (SLD) for this purpose. In
an attempt to describe these speech disfluencies more
typically found in the speech of stuttering children, these
authors defined SLD as consisting of any one of the fol-
lowing types of disfluency: part-word repetitions (e.g.,
‘b-but’, ‘thi-thi-this’), single-syllable word repetitions
(e.g., ‘you you you’, ‘and and’), disrhythmic prolongations
(e.g., ‘mmmmy’, ‘coooookie’), blocks (e.g., ‘#toy’), and
broken words (e.g., ‘o#pen’). Ambrose and Yairi [3] de-
scribed other kinds of disfluencies as ‘other disfluencies’
(OD), for example, interjections (e.g., ‘um’), revision or
abandoned utterances (e.g., ‘Mon ate/ Mon fixed dinner’,
‘I want/Hey look at that’) and multisyllable or phrase rep-
etitions (e.g., ‘because because’, ‘I want I want to go’).
Conture [1] and Yairi and Ambrose [4] suggested a crite-
rion of 3% SLD per total number of words as one useful
means to help distinguish stuttering from nonstuttering
children.
Several studies suggested that instances of stuttering
or SLD are more frequent in the speech samples of indi-
viduals diagnosed as stutterers compared to individuals
considered fluent speakers [1, 3–5, 9–12]. In general, the
mean frequency of SLD in the speech of stuttering chil-
dren reported varies between 9.6 and 16.9%, while in nor-
mally fluent controls the mean frequency varies between
1.2 and 3.02% [4].
Such age-related changes seem likely to make conver-
sation more effortful and to generate higher disfluency
rates. Duchin and Mysak [13] reported no change in dis-
fluencies across adults (21–30 years vs. 45–54 years vs.
55–64 years vs. 75–91 years). Leeper and Culatta [14] also
reported no change in the frequency of disfluencies be-
tween older adults (55–92 years) and young adults (25–
35 years). These results regarding disfluencies suggest
that they do not appear to be vulnerable to the aging pro-
cess.
One must be cautious in generalizing findings de-
scribing English-speaking individuals to other linguistic
and cultural groups. Some investigations of fluency in
other populations have included studies of the German
and Spanish languages. By understanding expected char-
acteristics in normally fluent individuals and speakers of
languages other than English, clinicians will be able to
58 Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64
differentiate more and less typical behaviors and identify
stuttering in different populations.
The purpose of the present study is to (a) classify,
quantify and compare the typology of speech disruptions
presented by stuttering children, adolescents and adults,
(b) compare the results with the corresponding fluent
groups and (c) verify differences in the occurrence of SLD
and OD in the different age groups of Brazilian Portu-
guese-speaking individuals.
Method
Subjects
Subjects were 150 individuals, 108 male and 42 female, aged
between 4.0 and 49.11; they were divided into six groups: children
who stutter (CWS, n = 25), children who do not stutter (CWNS,
n = 25), adolescents who stutter (AWS, n = 25), adolescents who
do not stutter (AWNS, n = 25), adults who stutter (AdWS, n = 25)
and adults who do not stutter (AdWNS, n = 25).
The groups of children (CWS and CWNS) consisted of 38 boys
and 12 girls, with ages between 4.0 and 11.11 years (mean age =
5.7 years). The groups of adolescents (AWS and AWNS) consist-
ed of 30 males and 20 females, with ages between 12.0 and 17.11
years (mean age = 15.3 years). The groups of adults (AdWS and
AdWNS) consisted of 40 males and 10 females, with ages between
18.0 and 49.11 years (mean age = 27.6 years). All participants were
native speakers of Portuguese living in São Paulo, Brazil.
Criteria for Participation
A participant was selected for the groups CWS, AWS or AdWS
based on all of the following criteria: (a) presenting a fluency pro-
file outside the age reference values [15, 16], (b) receiving a score
of 12 or more indicating stuttering (equivalent to at least ‘mild’
stuttering) on the Stuttering Severity Instrument 3 [17], (c) pre-
senting over 3% SLD per 100 syllables [1, 4].
A participant was selected for the groups CWNS, AWNS or
AdWNS based on the absence of the above-mentioned criteria for
selection of the groups CWS, AWS and AdWS. This means that
for a participant to be considered as a member of the groups
CWNS, AWNS or AdWNS, he or she had to meet all of the fol-
lowing criteria: (a) presenting fluency profile within the age refer-
ence values, (b) receiving the maximum of 10 points (equivalent
to ‘very mild’ stuttering) on the Stuttering Severity Instrument,
(c) presenting 3% or less SLD per 100 syllables.
A participant was excluded when he or she reported any neu-
rological, psychiatric and/or communication disorders.
Apparatus
The participants were video recorded using a digital video
camera, Sony DRC-SR62. All material was then transferred to the
computer hard disk Dell Optiplex GX620.
Speech Sample
Spontaneous speech samples – with a minimum duration of
20 min – were analyzed. The samples for the six groups were ob-
tained using similar procedures. The younger speakers either
produced a spontaneous monologue on a topic of their choice, or
Staróbole Juste/Furquim de Andrade
a sample was elicited by prompts given by a therapist. Prior to the Table 1. Comparison between stuttering and fluent individuals:
monologue, the subjects were given suggestions as to topics, such SLD and OD occurrence
as family, school, sports, friends, hobbies, films, actual television
programs, etc. The recordings of the adults consisted of stretches Source SS DF MS F p value
of spontaneous monologue elicited by a researcher/speech thera-
pist. The topics the adults used were current employment, school- CWS ! CWNS
ing or hobbies. SLD 6,938 1 6,938 38.95 <0.001*
Again, as with the young children, the purpose of these con- OD 4.5 1 4.5 0.134 0.716
versations was to observe fluency and nonfluency produced in the AWS ! AWNS
longest phrases (approximately 20–30 utterances/child). For each SLD 3,996 1 3,996 64.11 <0.001*
child an observation of speech was made based on a sample of 100 OD 2.42 1 2.42 0.046 0.830
words out of the longest utterances, typically longer than 5 words AdWS ! AdWNS
per utterance. In fact, more than 100 words were produced. The SLD 8,090 1 8,090 43.5 <0.001*
mean duration of the time needed to obtain these speech samples OD 3.92 1 3.92 0.081 0.777
was about 20–25 min. Orthographic transcriptions were carried
out and the stuttering episodes were marked. SS = Sum of squares; DF = degrees of freedom; MS = mean
square.
Observation of Characteristics of SLD and OD
For each participant, the frequency of SLD and OD was calcu-
lated. The type of SLD was recorded as one-syllable word repeti-
tions, sound and syllable repetitions, sound prolongations, and
Table 2. Overall comparison among age groups: SLD and OD oc-
blocks. Multisyllable word repetitions, phrase repetitions, inter-
jections, revisions, and interrupted utterances were defined as currence
OD.
As mentioned above, direct observation of SLD and OD is SS DF MS F p value
based on a sample of 100 words (8150–250 syllables) obtained
from the longer utterances in the speech sample of a participant. CWS ! AWS ! AdWS
It was reasoned that this direct observation method would have SLD 876.9 2 438.5 1.571 0.215
the most immediate usability in a clinical diagnostic setting. This OD 10.99 2 5.493 0.082 0.921
procedure demands audiovisual observation skills of the observ- CWNS ! AWNS ! AdWNS
ing clinician. As will be presented below, the first author’s intra- SLD 1.627 2 0.813 0.166 0.847
judge and interjudge measurement reliability for assessing these OD 36.24 2 18.12 0.975 0.382
speech samples was determined (with all samples being audio-
videotaped at the time of testing).
Overall a corpus of approximately 15,000 words was available
for observation and analysis. All subsequently described mea-
sures of speech (dis)fluency were based on the first author’s judg- Table 3. Comparison between age groups: SLD and OD occur-
ments, an individual with many years of experience assessing and rence
treating stuttering.
Source SS DF MS F p value

SLD
Results Stuttering
CWS ! AWS 499.3 1 499.3 2.128 0.151
General Speech Disfluency Data CWS ! AdWS 32 1 32 0.098 0.766
AWS ! AdWS 784.1 1 784.1 3.203 0.080
A series of one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) Fluent
were performed on the data with group (CWS vs. CWNS, CWNS ! AWNS 1.62 1 1.62 0.30 0.590
AWS vs. AWNS, AdWS vs. AdWNS) as between-subjects CWNS ! AdWNS 0.5 1 0.5 0.09 0.770
factor for the dependent measures SLD and OD as data AWNS ! AdWNS 0.32 1 0.32 0.09 0.760
presented a normal distribution (table 1). As expected, ta- OD
Stuttering
ble 1 shows that only the results obtained for SLD were CWS ! AWS 0.32 1 0.32 0.010 0.940
significant when comparing stuttering and fluent individ- CWS ! AdWS 9.68 1 9.68 0.018 0.670
uals (for children, adolescents and adults). Stuttering indi- AWS ! AdWS 6.48 1 6.48 0.08 0.780
viduals presented a higher frequency of this type of speech Fluent
disfluency. OD did not differentiate the groups, i.e. stut- CWNS ! AWNS 14.58 1 14.58 1.004 0.321
CWNS ! AdWNS 35.28 1 35.28 1.55 0.219
tering and fluent individuals presented similar results in
AWNS ! AdWNS 4.5 1 4.5 0.244 0.624
terms of the occurrence of this type of speech disfluency.

Speech Disfluency Types: Age Effects Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64 59

Table 4. Number of SLD and OD for children, adolescent and adult groups

Type Children Adolescents Adults

CWS CWNS AWS AWNS AdWS AdWNS

SLD
Blocks 6.20 (6.39) 0 6.16 (5.35) 0 13.84 (16.42) 0
Prolongations 5.84 (7.40) 0.48 (0.82) 3.20 (3.23) 1.48 (1.58) 5.84 (7.67) 1.44 (1.19)
Sound repetitions 1.68 (1.89) 0.04 (0.20) 1.40 (2.96) 0.06 (0.23) 2.32 (3.36) 0.08 (0.26)
Syllable repetitions 5.36 (5.52) 0.20 (0.41) 4.24 (6.02) 0.04 (0.20) 2.76 (2.50) 0.20 (0.41)
One-syllable word repetition 7.60 (5.89) 2.40 (2.72) 5.36 (4.33) 0.96 (0.68) 3.52 (2.62) 1.20 (1.35)
Total SLD 26.68 (18.65) 3.12 (2.89) 20.36 (11.02) 2.48 (1.81) 28.28 (19.19) 2.84 (1.95)
OD
Multisyllable word repetitions 1.04 (1.24) 0.60 (0.65) 1.16 (1.21) 1.36 (1.55) 1.84 (2.01) 2.08 (1.68)
Phrase repetition 1.92 (1.73) 0.64 (0.91) 1.44 (1.23) 1.96 (1.24) 1.16 (1.80) 0.92 (0.91)
Interjections 5.96 (4.80) 8.56 (4.13) 10.00 (8.22) 8.32 (2.23) 10.36 (6.90) 9.68 (4.24)
Revisions 1.64 (1.55) 1.16 (1.37) 0.92 (1.08) 1.44 (1.47) 1.00 (0.82) 1.00 (1.08)
Interrupted utterances 0.24 (0.44) 0.44 (0.71) 0.20 (0.41) 0.20 (0.50) 0.08 (0.28) 0.20 (0.50)
Total OD 10.80 (6.68) 11.40 (4.76) 13.72 (9.71) 13.28 (3.20) 14.44 (8.36) 13.88 (5.17)

Data shown as mean with standard deviation in parentheses.

Two ANOVAs were performed on the data with group
(CWS, AWNS, AdWS and CWNS, AWNS, AdWNS) as
between-subjects variable and within-subjects variables
SLD and OD (table 2). Although no interaction was ob-
served on such analyses, a series of one-way ANOVAs was
performed to investigate possible subsumed interactions
(table 3). Tables 2 and 3 show that, although differences
among different age ranges exist, these differences were
not considered statistically significant for fluent individ-
uals and stutterers.
Types of SLD Speech Disfluencies
Table 4 displays the distribution of speech disfluencies
according to their types for all groups. CWS, AWS and
AdWS showed all types of OD and SLD. The fluent groups
(CWNS, AWNS and AdWNS) also presented all types of
OD and SLD, except for blocks.
Types of SLD Speech Disruptions and Age Groups
Six one-way ANOVAs with group factor (CWS,
CWNS, AWS, AWNS, AdWS, AdWNS) for dependent
measure SLD speech disfluencies (blocks, prolongations,
sound and syllable repetitions and one-syllable word
repetitions) were performed. For all the groups, the
ANOVAs revealed a significant effect of SLD [CWS:
F(1, 48) = 3.706, p = 0.007; CWNS: F(1, 48) = 15.381, p !
0.001; AWS: F(1, 48) = 4.239, p = 0.003; AWNS: F(1, 48) =
19.576, p ! 0.001; AdWS: F(1, 48) = 8.070, p ! 0.001;
AdWNS: F(1, 48) = 17.714, p ! 0.001]. To further analyze
these interactions, a series of ten one-way ANOVAs were
performed for each group (tables 5–7).
Table 5 revealed that for CWS, there was no statisti-
cally significant difference between blocks, prolongation
and one-syllable word repetitions (blocks and prolonga-
tion p = 0.855; blocks and one-syllable word repetitions
p = 0.424; prolongation and one-syllable word repetitions
p = 0.357). These were the three most frequent types of
SLD for CWS (table 4). Indeed, for CWNS, the most fre-
quent SLD was the one-syllable word repetition (table 4),
which was significantly different from the other types of
SLD (p ! 0.001 for prolongations, blocks, sound and syl-
lable repetitions, table 5).
Table 6 shows that, as the results obtained for AWS, the
analysis revealed no statistically significant difference on
the comparison between blocks, prolongation and one-
syllable word repetitions (blocks and prolongation p =
0.731; blocks and one-syllable word repetitions p = 0.564;
prolongation and one-syllable word repetitions p = 0.051).
These three SLD types were the most frequent ones for
AWS (table 4). For AWNS, the most frequent SLD was the
one-syllable word repetition (table 4), which was statisti-
cally significant (p ! 0.001 for prolongations, blocks,
sound and syllable repetitions, table 6).

60 Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64 Staróbole Juste/Furquim de Andrade

Table 5. One-way ANOVAs for SLD types: children Table 6. One-way ANOVAs for SLD types: adolescents

Blocks Prolon- Sound Syllable Blocks Prolon- Sound Syllable

gation repetition repetition gation repetition repetition

CWS AWS
Prolongation F 0.034 Prolongation F 0.358
p 0.855 p 0.731
Sound repetition F 11.505 7.412 Sound repetition F 15.150 4.226
p 0.001* 0.009* p <0.001* 0.040*
Syllable repetition F 5.608 4.138 9.943 Syllable repetition F 4.132 7.372 4.479
p 0.022* 0.030* 0.003* p 0.040* 0.008* 0.040*
One-syllable F 0.649 0.866 22.920 13.621 One-syllable F 0.338 4.000 14.261 5.272
word repetition p 0.424 0.357 <0.001* <0.001* word repetition p 0.564 0.051 <0.001* 0.020*
CWNS AWNS
Prolongation F 8.512 Prolongation F 21.817
p 0.005* p <0.001*
Sound repetition F 1.000 6.753 Sound repetition F no 21.817
p 0.322 0.012* p variance <0.001*
Syllable repetition F 6.000 2.324 3.097 Syllable repetition F 1.000 20.329 1.000
p 0.018* 0.134 0.085 p 0.322 <0.001* 0.322
One-syllable F 19.416 11.387 18.673 15.956 One-syllable F 50.453 43.374 50.453 42.604
word repetition p <0.001* 0.001* <0.001* <0.001* word repetition p <0.001* 0.001* <0.001* <0.001*

Degrees of freedom for all analyses were 1, 48. Degrees of freedom for all analyses were 1, 48.

Blocks were the SLD most frequently observed for
AdWS (table 4), and there was a statistically significant
difference when compared with other disfluency types
(p = 0.032 for prolongations, p = 0.001 for sound repeti-
tions, p = 0.002 for syllable repetitions and p = 0.003 for
one-syllable word repetitions, table 7). For AdWNS, the
SLD most frequently observed were prolongation and
one-syllable word repetitions (table 4), with no statistical
difference between them (p = 0.509, table 7).
In summary, we observed that the SLD most frequent-
ly observed for children and adolescents who stutter were
blocks, prolongations and one-syllable word repetitions.
For adults, the SLD most frequently observed were blocks.
For fluent speakers, results indicate that, for children, the
most frequent SLD were one-syllable word repetitions
and, for adolescents and adults, the most frequent SLD
were prolongations and one-syllable word repetitions.
groups, the ANOVAs revealed a significant effect of OD
[CWS: F(1, 48) = 20.414, p ! 0.001; CWNS: F(1, 48) =
74.768, p ! 0.001; AWS: F(1, 48) = 29.009, p ! 0.001;
AWNS: F(1, 48) = 114.999, p ! 0.001; AdWS: F(1, 48) =
40.112, p ! 0.001; AdWNS: F(1, 48) = 83.234, p ! 0.001].
To further analyze these interactions, a series of ten one-
way ANOVAs were performed for each group (ta-
bles 8–10).
For OD, however, no differences between stuttering
and fluent groups were observed. For every group and all
age ranges, interjection was the most frequently observed
type of disfluency (table  4), which statistically differed
from the other OD (p ! 0.001). Other types of disfluency
were rare (tables 8–10).
Discussion

Types of OD Speech Disruptions and Age Groups
Six one-way ANOVAs with group factor (CWS,
CWNS, AWS, AWNS, AdWS, AdWNS) for dependent
measure OD speech disfluencies (multisyllable word rep-
etitions, phrase repetitions, interjections, revisions and
interrupted utterances) were performed. For all the
Although SLD is one of the most important parame-
ters for the diagnosis of stuttering [1, 3, 9, 18], it is ob-
served that it is also present in the speech of fluent indi-
viduals. Two factors seem to differentiate stutterers and
fluent speakers regarding speech disruptions: (a) quan-
titative factors – the frequency of these disruptions in

Speech Disfluency Types: Age Effects Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64 61

Table 7. One-way ANOVAs for SLD types: adults Table 8. One-way ANOVAs for OD types: children

Blocks Prolon- Sound Syllable Word Phrase Inter- Revision

gation repetition repetition repetition repetition jection

AdWS CWS
Prolongation F 4.874 Phrase repetition F 4.271
p 0.032* p 0.044*
Sound repetition F 11.861 4.418 Interjection F 24.620 15.674
p 0.001* 0.041* p <0.001* <0.001*
Syllable repetition F 11.130 3.644 0.275 Revision F 2.280 0.363 18.335
p 0.002* 0.062 0.602 p 0.138 0.550 <0.001*
One-syllable F 9.636 2.050 1.983 1.101 Interrupted F 9.249 22.165 35.211 18.870
word repetition p 0.003* 0.159 0.166 0.299 utterances p 0.004* <0.001* 0.001* <0.001*
AdWNS CWNS
Prolongation F 36.422 Phrase repetition F 0.032
p <0.001* p 0.858
Sound repetition F no 36.422 Interjection F 90.482 87.541
p variance <0.001* p <0.001* <0.001*
Syllable repetition F 6.000 24.176 6.000 Revision F 3.399 2.491 72.129
p 0.018* <0.001* 0.018* p 0.071 0.121 <0.001*
One-syllable F 19.636 0.422 19.636 12.500 Interrupted F 0.693 0.752 93.675 5.408
word repetition p <0.001* 0.509 <0.001* 0.001* utterances p 0.409 0.390 <0.001* 0.024*

Degrees of freedom for all analyses were 1, 48. Degrees of freedom for all analyses were 1, 48.

Table 9. One-way ANOVAs for OD types: adolescents Table 10. One-way ANOVAs for OD types: adults

Word Phrase Inter- Revision Word Phrase Inter- Revision

repetition repetition jection repetition repetition jection

AWS AdWS
Phrase repetition F 0.658 Phrase repetition F 1.588
p 0.421 p 0.214
Interjection F 28.325 26.546 Interjection F 35.149 41.656
p <0.001* <0.001* p <0.001* <0.001*
Revision F 0.547 2.535 30.020 Revision F 3.735 0.165 45.403
p 0.463 0.118 <0.001* p 0.059 0.687 <0.001*
Interrupted F 14.049 22.972 35.483 9.769 Interrupted F 18.735 8.836 55.445 28.466
utterances p <0.001* <0.001* <0.001* 0.003* utterances p <0.001* 0.005* <0.001* <0.001*
AWNS AdWNS
Phrase repetition F 2.280 Phrase repetition F 9.208
p 0.137 p 0.004*
Interjection F 164.023 155.177 Interjection F 69.412 102.027
p <0.001* <0.001* p <0.001* <0.001*
Revision F 0.035 1.820 165.505 Revision F 7.302 0.080 98.392
p 0.852 0.184 <0.001* p 0.009* 0.778 <0.001*
Interrupted F 12.662 43.263 315.375 15.862 Interrupted F 28.719 12.037 123.268 11.294
utterances p <0.001* <0.001* <0.001* <0.001* utterances p <0.001* 0.001* <0.001* 0.001*

Degrees of freedom for all analyses were 1, 48. Degrees of freedom for all analyses were 1, 48.

62 Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64 Staróbole Juste/Furquim de Andrade

speech (higher number for stutterers); (b) qualitative fac-
tors – the type of SLD observed (different for stutterers
and fluent individuals).
As might be expected from previous studies of En-
glish-, German- and Spanish-speaking individuals [1,
3–5, 10–12, 19–22], SLD frequency differed between the
stuttering and fluent groups. The occurrence of speech
disruptions (SLD) suggests a greater deficit in the motor
processing of speech [1, 10, 18, 23]; therefore stuttering
individuals, independently of their age, present a higher
occurrence of SLD when compared with their fluent
counterparts [3, 12, 20–22]. The results of the present
study indicate that the vast majority of stutterers present
within-word prolongations or blocks. However, these dis-
fluencies were not observed in the speech samples of flu-
ent individuals, regardless of their age.
Regarding prolongations, a more specific analysis of
characteristics is necessary. This analysis should differ-
entiate the two types of prolongations observed in the
speech samples of the participants: within-word prolon-
gations and prolongations at the end of words. As previ-
ously mentioned, within-word prolongations were exclu-
sively observed in speech samples of stutterers of all age
groups. In a study carried out with German-speaking
children [22], the authors suggested that approximately
77% of the children who stutter exhibited some form of
prolongation or blocks, but 0% of the normally fluent
children produced prolongations or blocks. According to
that study [22], while no one knows the precise origin of
prolongations/blocks (nor for that matter, any other stut-
tered disfluency), Alm [23] suggested that stuttering may
be related to difficulties with basal ganglia functioning,
difficulties thought to negatively influence timing cues
needed to realize speech-language production and that
these temporal disruptions could contribute to the pro-
duction of prolongations. Similarly, Conture [1] described
prolongations from a temporal perspective, labeling them
as ‘cessations’ of speech production.
In the present study, prolongations observed in the
speech of fluent individuals occurred exclusively on the
last phoneme of the last syllable of the word. These pro-
longations seem to have the same purpose as hesitations,
i.e. they are a strategy used to facilitate coarticulation be-
tween the words [12]. When the speaker is articulating a
lexical unit, the motor programming of the subsequent
unit is already available. For fluency to be achieved, the
mechanism used by the speaker can be the prolongation
of the end of the previous word [24, 25].
Results also indicated that SLDs were not quantitative-
ly different among the different age groups of stutterers.
Speech Disfluency Types: Age Effects
However, qualitative differences between the types of
speech disfluencies were observed. For CWS and AWS,
the most frequently observed SLD types were blocks and
one-syllable word repetitions. For adults, blocks were the
most frequently observed SLD, which statistically dif-
fered from other speech disfluencies of this type.
A possible explanation may be the fact that, for chil-
dren, speech disfluencies predominantly occurred in
function words [24–27]. Among function words, the ar-
ticle was the grammatical class with the highest number
of speech disfluencies [25–27]. In Brazilian Portuguese,
the articles, both definite (o, a, os, as) and indefinite (um,
uns, uma, umas), are monosyllabic words [28]. Moreover,
one can observe a high occurrence of monosyllabic words
in this language [28] when analyzing other function
words (conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns and inter-
jections). This fact may account for the large number of
one-syllable word repetitions.
Au-Yeung et al. [25] observed that disruptions in func-
tion words mainly occurred when function words pre-
ceded content words in the speech of children – fluent
speakers as well as stutterers. This fact validates the hy-
pothesis of the present study that disruptions in function
words are used as a postponing tactic when the subse-
quent content word is not ready for execution.
In subsequent studies [26, 29], the shift in the occur-
rence of disruptions from function to content words
along the age range, in fluent individuals and in stutter-
ers, was investigated. The results indicated that all chil-
dren, fluent and stutterers, presented more disruptions
in function words. With increasing age, a difference be-
tween groups was observed: fluent individuals continued
to use the tactic of delaying the production of content
words, showing speech disfluencies in function words;
stutterers, however, seemed to abandon this delaying tac-
tic and, from adolescence, began to produce more disrup-
tions in content words, especially blocks.
The results of the present study indicate that fluent
and stuttering individuals do not behave differently in
terms of the occurrence of this type of speech disruption.
These findings agree with other studies carried out in dif-
ferent languages [3, 12, 20, 21], i.e. when considering OD,
differences between stuttering and fluent individuals are
not statistically significant. OD are common to all speak-
ers and fundamentally reflect linguistic uncertainty and
imprecision, or else, they intend to improve the compre-
hension of the message [3, 12, 18].
Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64 63
 Conclusion
The present study quantified and compared the speech
disfluency types presented by stuttering and fluent chil-
dren, adolescents and adults. The results indicated that
SLD (speech disfluencies suggesting deficits in the motor
processing of speech) differentiated the groups of fluent
individuals and stutterers (more frequent in stutterers) in
all age ranges tested. OD (speech disfluencies related to
linguistic processing of the message) did not differentiate
the groups of fluent individuals and stutterers in any of
the age ranges tested.
No significant quantitative differences were observed
among the groups of stutterers (children, adolescents and
adults). The differences observed between these groups
were qualitative ones, i.e., the type of disfluencies shown
in the speech – which seems to undergo a modification
with age. This modification of speech disfluency types
seems to be related to certain language development as-
pects that are observed in the speech of children, but are
no longer observed in the speech of adults.
These results show that the analysis of speech disflu-
encies, both quantitative and qualitative, is useful for dif-
ferentiating fluent individuals and stutterers. This analy-
sis is an important instrument for assessment and diag-
nosis of stuttering in all age groups.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that, although the
results of the present study are similar to studies in other
languages (English, Spanish and German), generaliza-
tions and comparisons with other populations of Portu-
guese speakers are necessary. Thus, results of this present
study should be limited to the Brazilian Portuguese
speakers described in this investigation.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by a grant from FAPESP
(07/03702-5).

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64 Folia Phoniatr Logop 2011;63:57–64 Staróbole Juste/Furquim de Andrade

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