PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING ABILITIES OF ADULTS WHO STUTTER

232 Pages·2011·1.33 MB·English

PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING ABILITIES OF ADULTS WHO STUTTER

by
Kristin M. Pelczarski
B. A. in Speech and Hearing Science, The George Washington University, 1997
M. A. in Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, 2003

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh
2011

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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
SCHOOL OF HEALTH AND REHABILITATION SCIENCES

This dissertation was presented

by

Kristin M. Pelczarski

It was defended on
November 4, 2011
and approved by
Michael W. Dickey, Assistant Professor
Julie A. Fiez, Professor
Paula Leslie, Associate Professor
Dissertation Director: J. Scott Yaruss, PhD, Associate Professor

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Copyright © by Kristin M. Pelczarski
2011

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PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING ABILITIES IN ADULTS WHO STUTTER
Kristin M. Pelczarski, Ph.D
University of Pittsburgh, 2011

This study investigated phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid automatic
naming abilities of adults who stutter and typically fluent peers. Many theorists posit that a delay
or breakdown occurs during “phonological encoding,” or the retrieval or construction of
phonological segments (Howell & Au-Yeung, 2002; Perkins, Kent & Curlee, 1991; Postma &
Kolk, 1993; Wingate 1988). Efficient phonological encoding is predicated upon the ability to
segment phonological representations in a rapid, precise manner. According to current theories, a
delay or incomplete retrieval of lexical segments could impede the execution of the articulatory
plan, thereby resulting in disfluent speech. Unfortunately, the process of phonological encoding
is not directly observable and must therefore be explored though alternate processes that reflects
its incremental nature. Phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid automatic
naming can be examined to accomplish this task. Several core mechanisms are utilized during
phonological processing, and a deficit in any of these mechanisms could account for
performance differences in phonological processing tasks. Completion of these tasks is
dependent upon the quality of phonological representations in the lexicon, the ability to construct
novel phonological codes online, and the ability to maintain phonological representations in
memory. The process of redintegration, whereby pre-existing lexical-semantic knowledge is used

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to supplement decaying or delayed phonological code (Hulme et al., 1997), can also play an
important role in the completion of phonological processing tasks.
Participants completed several tasks examining different aspects of their phonological
processing abilities. Significant between-group differences were revealed on nonlexical
phonological awareness tasks, nonword repetition tasks, and rapid automatic naming tasks that
used lexical stimuli. Adults who stutter performed significantly less well than typically fluent
adults on tasks that used nonlexical stimuli. Adults who stutter appear to rely heavily on lexical-
semantic information (redintegration) to bolster lower performance in other aspects of
phonological encoding. Participants in both groups performed equally well on tasks that used
lexical stimuli but not on tasks with nonlexical stimuli, indicating that between-group differences
in phonological encoding exist. Differences in core mechanisms of phonological processing may
reveal subtle linguistic differences that may contribute to an unstable speech system in people
who stutter.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................................... xvii
1.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 1
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 TYPICAL LANGUAGE FORMULATION ............................................................................. 6
2.1.1 An information processing model of speech perception and production ................... 9
2.1.2 Contribution of phonological working memory to language ................................... 15
2.2 PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING ......................................................................................... 18
2.2.1 Phonological awareness ........................................................................................... 18
2.2.2 Phonological memory .............................................................................................. 30
2.2.3 Rapid automatic naming .......................................................................................... 34
2.2.4 Core mechanisms ..................................................................................................... 35
2.2.5 Summary .................................................................................................................. 37
2.3 PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING IN INDIVIDUALS WHO STUTTER ............................ 38
2.3.1 Phonological awareness and individuals who stutter ............................................... 41
2.3.2 Phonological memory and individuals who stutter .................................................. 54
2.3.3 Rapid automatic naming and individuals who stutter .............................................. 60
2.4 PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING AND STUTTERING SUMMARY ................................ 61
2.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ..................................................................................................... 63
3.0 METHOD ............................................................................................................................................. 70

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3.1 PARTICIPANTS ..................................................................................................................... 70
3.2 INCLUSION AND MATCHING CRITERIA ........................................................................ 71
3.2.1 Speech fluency ......................................................................................................... 71
3.2.2 Group matching criteria ........................................................................................... 72
3.3 BACKGROUND DATA ......................................................................................................... 74
3.3.1 Reading history ........................................................................................................ 74
3.3.2 Vocabulary ............................................................................................................... 74
3.4 INSTRUMENTATION ........................................................................................................... 75
3.5 DATA COLLECTION ............................................................................................................ 76
3.5.1 Phonological awareness tasks with lexical stimuli .................................................. 76
3.5.2 Phonological awareness tasks with nonword stimuli ............................................... 78
3.5.3 Phonological awareness reaction times.................................................................... 79
3.5.4 Phonological memory .............................................................................................. 87
3.5.5 Nonword repetition .................................................................................................. 88
3.5.6 Rapid automatic naming .......................................................................................... 89
3.6 PROCEDURES ....................................................................................................................... 90
3.7 MEASUREMENT RELIABILITY ......................................................................................... 92
3.7.1 Standardized test reliability and validity .................................................................. 92
3.7.2 Inter- and intra-rater reliability ................................................................................ 92
3.8 ANALYSES ............................................................................................................................. 94
4.0 RESULTS ............................................................................................................................................. 95
4.1 DESCRIPTIVE MEASURES .................................................................................................. 95
4.2 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS WITH LEXICAL STIMULI .......................................... 96
4.2.1 Phonological awareness composite score ................................................................ 97
4.3 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS WITH NON-LEXICAL STIMULI ................................ 98

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4.3.1 Alternate phonological awareness composite scores ............................................... 99
4.4 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS REACTION TIMES ..................................................... 101
4.4.1 Lexical decision accuracy ...................................................................................... 101
4.4.2 Lexical decision reaction times - lexical status ...................................................... 103
4.4.3 Lexical decision reaction times - length effect ...................................................... 104
4.4.4 Silent phoneme blending/lexical decision task accuracy ....................................... 105
4.4.5 Silent phoneme blending/lexical decision - lexical status ..................................... 111
4.4.6 Silent phoneme blending/lexical decision - length effects ..................................... 112
4.5 PHONOLOGICAL MEMORY ............................................................................................. 112
4.5.1 Phonological memory composite scores ................................................................ 113
4.5.2 Nonword repetition tasks ....................................................................................... 114
4.6 RAPID AUTOMATIC NAMING ......................................................................................... 116
4.6.1 Rapid automatic naming composite scores ............................................................ 116
4.7 RESULTS SUMMARY ......................................................................................................... 118
5.0 DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................................... 120
5.1 OVERALL PERFORMANCE .............................................................................................. 120
5.1.1 General performance .............................................................................................. 120
5.2 DESCRIPTIVE MEASURES ................................................................................................ 121
5.3 MECHANISMS OF PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING ..................................................... 122
5.4 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ....................................................................................... 123
5.4.1 Phonological awareness - real word stimuli .......................................................... 123
5.4.2 Phonological awareness - nonword stimuli ........................................................... 125
5.4.3 Phonological awareness timing .............................................................................. 127
5.5 PHONOLOGICAL MEMORY ............................................................................................. 128
5.5.1 Phonological memory tasks ................................................................................... 128

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5.5.2 Nonword repetition and late-8 nonword repetition tasks ....................................... 129
5.6 RAPID AUTOMATIC NAMING ......................................................................................... 131
5.7 THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS ....................................................................................... 132
5.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ......................................................................................... 135
5.9 FUTURE DIRECTIONS ....................................................................................................... 137
5.10 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 139
APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................................................... 140
APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................................................... 144
APPENDIX C ........................................................................................................................................... 145
C.1 FAULT LINE THEORY ....................................................................................................... 145
C.2 NEUROPSYCHOLINGUISTIC THEORY .......................................................................... 146
C.3 COVERT REPAIR HYPOTHESIS ...................................................................................... 147
C.5 EXPLAN ............................................................................................................................... 148
C.6 SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... 149
APPENDIX D ........................................................................................................................................... 150
D.1 AGE ..................................................................................................................................... 151
D.2 SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS ............................................................................................ 152
D.3 GENERAL LANGUAGE .................................................................................................... 153
D.4 VOCABULARY .................................................................................................................. 154
D.5 SPEECH SOUND ABILITIES ............................................................................................ 156
APPENDIX E ........................................................................................................................................... 158
E.I IMPLICIT PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS .................................................................... 158
E.2 EXPLICIT PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ................................................................... 161
APPENDIX F............................................................................................................................................ 165
APPENDIX G ........................................................................................................................................... 171

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APPENDIX H ........................................................................................................................................... 173
APPENDIX I ............................................................................................................................................ 175
I.1 VOCABULARY ................................................................................................................... 175
I.2 PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS COMPOSITE SCORE .................................................. 178
I.3 ALTERNATE PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS COMPOSITE SCORES ....................... 181
I.4 PHONOLOGICAL MEMORY COMPOSITE SCORES ..................................................... 182
I.5 RAPID AUTOMATIC NAMING COMPOSITE SCORES ................................................. 185
I.6 CORRELATION SUMMARY ............................................................................................. 187
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................................... 189

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