Disfluency Behavior of Elementary School Stutterers and Non-Stutterers: The Adaptation Effect

Abstract

A group of 184 elementary school children, 92 stutterers and 92 matched nonstutterers, performed a speaking task three times consecutively. Kindergarten and first grade children repeated a series of sentences, and the second through sixth grade children read a passage. Both the stutterers and the nonstutterers exhibited the adaptation effect. Both adapted proportionally to approximately the same degree. There was no tendency in either group for the degree of adaptation to vary as a function of grade level. Whether or not a child exhibited the adaptation effect appeared to be more closely related to how disfluent he was on his first performance of the task than to whether he had been labeled as a stutterer or a nonstutterer. Our results indictate that adaptation is not unique to stutterers, but is to be found also in normal speakers. Several implications are discussed.