Memory abilities verification in stutterers

• Grant number: 11/10632-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2011
• End date: November 30, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Speech Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Ana Maria Schiefer
• Grantee: Carla dos Reis Piffer Vilela
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The developmental stuttering resume in a disturbance of a motor and temporal control dysfunction of speech, with beginning in childhood, principally between 18 months and 7 years old, during the moment of language acquirement and development; its prevalence is about 1% in adults. It can be defined as a result of a central nervous system dysfunction, focused on the motor and temporal control of speech, with genetic basis. Stuttering is recognized principally for the speech ruptures, habitual repetitions or elongations of sound, syllabus and words. It is common in the literature relate stuttering with some other deficit that interferes with the communicative functions. This study will focus on relations between memory and stuttering. Este estudo será focado nas relações entre memória e a gagueira. Basically, the memory classes of this study are: working, verbal, long-term semantic, short-term visual and prospective. Memory is intimately linked to the communication process, also holding a great importance. Different authors found in their researches evidences that stuttering could be related to memory deficits. From these theoretical presuppositions, the objective of this study is to verify the memory abilities in developmental stuttering patients. This study will be performed in the clinic of Speech and Language Evaluation from HSP/UNIFESP with 20 individuals selected, 10 adolescents and 10 adults, all of them with diagnosis of developmental stuttering. The participants will be paired by age and by schooling according to the normative data from the used instrument - brief neuropsychological triage - Neupsilin (Fonseca, Salles and Parente, 2009). The sample excludes the ones with evidence of deafness, neurological and/or psychiatrics diseases. The participants will follow the procedures of anamnesis, video recording of spontaneous speech and also of reading, severity level classification of stuttering - SSI-3(Riley, 1994), brief neuropsychological triage - Neupsilin (Fonseca, Salles and Parente, 2009) with focuses on memory abilities. The found results will be submitted to statistics analysis. (AU)