Coordination of Laryngeal and Supralaryngeal Behavior in Stutterers

Abstract

In 1971 Van Riper suggested that the temporal disruptions in speech which constitute stuttering result from the speaker possessing a deficient timing mechanism for speech. Recently Kent (1984) has reiterated this idea by postulating that the essence of stuttering is a reduced ability to generate temporal programs. A related explanation of stuttering is expressed in the discoordination hypothesis advanced by Perkins and colleagues (1976). According to the discoordination hypothesis, stuttering results from a speaker’s difficulty in coordinating phonation with articulation and respiration. This hypothesis expresses in weakened form, the view that the larynx has a central role in precipitating moments of stuttering, a notion which prompted much research in the 1970s. In general, these studies have left the question of laryngeal focus unresolved, although they have revealed evidence of a strong laryngeal component in stuttering (Conture, McCall & Brewer, 1977; Freeman & Ushijima, 1978). In order both to better understand the nature of speech timing in stutterers and to resolve the laryngeal focus question, it is appropriate to study how the three major speech systems interact or coordinate when stutterers are speaking.