Operant procedures applied to stuttering therapy for children

This report concerns operant stuttering therapy programs for five children ranging in age from six to nine years. The programs included programmed desensitization, delayed auditory feedback, and gradual increase in the length and complexity of the speech utterance. Reinforcing events ranged from social reward to points which could be exchanged for toys. The programs varied in length from 15 to 73.3 hours. They were all successful in helping the children to establish fluent speech. Special transfer and maintenance programs were necessary for some of the children. Follow-up measures indicated that the children had maintained their fluency. The value of viewing stuttering as operant behavior was demonstrated.

The use of the portable voice masker in stuttering therapy

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a portable voice masker used as an adjunct to stuttering therapy. Eight high-school and three adult stutterers undergoing intensive six-week summer therapy at the Central Michigan University Speech Clinic served as subjects. It was noticed that, when using the masker, a stutterer could often succeed in stopping a stuttering tremor and make a smooth, forceful transition to the next sound. The stutterers were trained to shift their monitoring set from auditory to tactual and proprioceptive channels in order to become aware of this phenomenon. At no time did a stutterer obtain stutter-free speech; however, the severity of his blocks was significantly reduced. The results indicate that the portable voice masker can be employed as a useful adjunct to stuttering therapy.

Time-out as a punishment for button pushing

Three normal-speaking adults were assigned the task of speaking spontaneously for fifteen 40-minute sessions. During baserate, the subjects simultaneously performed a motor task that consisted of depressing one or the other of two buttons on signal—one button push each seven seconds. During treatment sessions, each depression of the predetermined criterion button activated a red light. The light remained on for seven seconds, after which it was extinguished automatically until the next depression of the criterion button. Prior to each treatment session the subjects were told to stop speaking immediately when the red light came on and to remain silent for as long as the light was on.

For all three subjects, arranging the circumstances such that time-out from speaking for seven seconds was made contingent on pushing the criterion button resulted in a marked decrease in the frequency of criterion button pushes.

The effect of punishment of expectancy to stutter on the frequencies of subsequent expectancies and stuttering

Subjects were 12 stutterers who were assigned to experimental, shock-control, and time-control groups in order to investigate the effect of punishment of signaled expectancies to stutter on the frequencies of expectancy and stuttering subsequent to punishment. Electro-shock was contingent on signaled expectancies in the experimental group, but was not contiguous to verbalizations in any group. Frequencies of expectancy and stuttering significantly decreased following punishment of signaled expectancies to stutter.

Effects of physical training on stuttering

Eight college students enrolled in group therapy for stuttering were divided into two equal groups for 20 weeks. The training group supplemented therapy with endurance running and calisthenics three days per week. The subjects were tested prior to and at the conclusion of the training on a battery of stuttering tests and cardiovascular measures taken at rest, after stuttering, and after submaximal exercise. There were no significant differences (0.05 level) prior to training. At the conclusion of training, the training group was significandy better in cardiovascular response to exercise and stuttering. Although physical training did not significantly aid the reduction of stuttering as measured in this study, training did cause an increased ability to adapt physiologically to physical stress and to the stress of stuttering.

Pre-therapy adaptation of stuttering and its relation to speech measures of therapy progress

Three measures of stuttering adaptation were obtained on 20 stutterers prior to the beginning of an eight-week residential therapy program. Following therapy each subject was evaluated using six scores which represented changes in speaking rate and frequency of stuttering during oral reading and in self-formulated speech. The results showed that less than half of the stutterers demonstrated a significant adaptation trend (A t ), and only 12 of 20 showed significant normal deviate scores (A s ) of adaptation. Partial correlation coefficients were significant in a negative direction between pretherapy percentage (A p ) and trend (A t ) adaptation measures and post-therapy scores showing increment in reading and speaking rate. It appears that adaptation is neither consistendy nor highly related to speech measures of therapy progress. A rationale is suggested for the negative correlation of adaptation and therapy change scores.