Effects of alteration in the speech rate in childhood stuttering

• Grant number: 18/19818-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2019
• End date: February 29, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Speech Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Cristiane Moço Canhetti de Oliveira
• Grantee: Thaís Carolyne Prado Balbo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Background: Reducing speech rate is a goal often worked in stuttering therapy in order to promote fluency. Aim: To verify the effects of the slow speech rate in relation to the habitual rate in children with stuttering. Method: The participants will be 20 children, divided in two groups: 10 preschool children who stutter (PSCWS), and 10 school-age children who stutter (SCWS). After signing the informed consent on the part of those responsible, all children will be submitted to speech fluency assessment, assessment of stuttering severity and self-perceived speech protocol. The speech sample of spontaneous speech will be performed at two speech rates, usual and slow. For each speech rate a theme will be proposed to the child to speak about. A brief intervention will be performed to facilitate slow speech, between the registrations of speech samples. The Praat software will be used to measure the time spent on each speech sample collected. Analysis of the results: The results will be analyzed regarding to the effects of alterations in speech rate in PSCWS and SCWS through the comparison of disfluencies frequency, speech rate and stuttering severity in two speech samples with statistical analysis of data.