JSS INSTITUTE OF SPEECH AND HEARING
SUBJECT: FLUENCY & ITS DISORDERS
Topics:
 Fluency & disfluency - definitions
 Factors affecting development &
 Dimensions of fluent speech
Submitted by:
Nitish Ranjan Patel
II M sc
Submitted to:
Ms. Suma
Lecturer
~1~
INTRODUCTION
The speech mechanism to produce speech and some people produce speech
more fluently, more easily, smoothly and rapidly than others. The ease with
which some people speak may result from characteristics present in the
mechanisms they use (Starkweather, 1987).
Speech is an impressive balancing act and it is little wonder that everyone slips
and stumbles from time to time when they talk. In literature much of
information is found of the development of articulation, language and voice
(Starkweather, 1987). But regarding fluency no conclusions has been made.
THE CONCEPT OF FLUENCY:
In popular usage, the terms ‘fluent’ and ‘fluency’ normally refer to a general
proficiency in the act of speaking or writing. The word fluency is taken from Latin
word which means flowing.
It refers to ‘what a listener perceives when listening to someone who is truly adept
at producing speech.’
According to a general proficiency in the act of speaking or means a smooth
and easy flow is readiness, no hesitations in beginning to speak, smoothness
especially with regard to speech and ‘readiness of utterance, flow of words’.
Odhams Dictionary of the English Language (smith and O’Loughlin 1946) offers
a similar definition of fluent; ‘having a ready command, confidence and flow of
words; voluble (fluent), glib; spoken easily no effort involved, rapidly and
without hesitation; flowing, smoothly and continuous; proceeding readily and
naturally, spontaneously without effort. In these definitions the temporal and
sequential features are emphasized. These cover a considerably wide range
including ‘breaks’ in the ‘smooth flow of speech’ such as pauses, interruption
etc and repetitions of linguistic elements such as sounds, syllables, words and
phrases. In addition, factors such as rhythmical patterning, stress and intonation
characteristics and overall rate of utterance could be considered relevant
features in an assessment of fluency
~2~
The term ‘fluency’ is used slightly differently in the context of language learning.
Here fluency is used to describe a level of efficiency in a foreign language. A
person popularly described as a fluent speaker of French, for eg ‘is one who
possesses the ability to express himself like a native speaker of French, to think
in the foreign language or to have a good command of language. The later
quality that of having a good command of the language perhaps implies
somewhat more than efficiency in speech and writing only. It may imply in
addition an ability in comprehending the language (Crystal 1971). However, in
the normal use of the term fluency in language teaching, emphasis is placed on
the production side of speech communication. Fluency (also called volubility
and loquaciousness) is the property of a person or of a system that delivers
information quickly and with expertise. Fluency indicates a very good
information processing speed, i.e. very low average time between successively
generated messages.
A FLUENT SPEAKER IS SAID TO BE ONE WHO IS READY IN THE USE
OF WORDS, ABLE TO EXPRESS HIMSELF READILY IN SPEECH OR
WRITING.
What is fluency?
 Fluency – the quality or state of being fluent. [Webster’s dictionary ‘09]
 Able to express oneself readily and effortlessly
 Flowing effortlessly; polished
The word fluency connotes facility in speech & language performance.
It can be categorized into 2 types:
1. Speech Fluency, &
2. Language Fluency
Speech fluency:
Effortless continuous speech at a rapid rate of utterance.
~3~
Language fluency:
Refers to syntactic semantic and pragmatic fluencies [Fillmore, 79] as well as
to the phonological fluency [Starkweather, 87]
FLUENCY- TYPES
Fillmore (1979) has described three types of fluency which corresponds to
three major components of language (syntax, semantics and pragmatics).
1. Syntactically fluent person has the ability to encode highly complex
sentences which represent wide variety of complex content from
relations.
2. Semantically fluent speaker have large vocabularies to which they
have full and ready access.
3. Pragmatically fluent speaker always know what to say in a wide
variety of social circumstances.
Stark weather’s term ‘phonologically’ fluent describes those speakers who
are able to pronounce long and complicated sequences of sounds and
syllables, including nonsense and foreign words.
DYSFLUENCY:
The term ‘dys’ denotes pathology or abnormal. ‘Dysfluency’ → abnormal
instances of fluency failure, i.e.; those most closely associated with
stuttering. Dysfluencies have been broadly defined as including all instances
of broken words (i.e.; part-word, syllable, or sound repetitions or
prolongations) and/or fluency disruptions associated with excess tension or
struggle. In contrast, ‘Disfluency’ has been proposed as the appropriate term
for normal non-disfluencies.
• Disfluencies or normal non-fluencies are considered to include
~4~
- silent
- non tense pauses
- interjections
- revisions
- word or phrase repetitions without indications of stress or struggle.
Normal disfluencies have been cataloged by several authors, and there is
general agreement among them as to what constitutes disfluency.
Eight commonly used categories of disfluency are:
- part-word repetition
- single-syllable word repetition
- multisyllabic word repetition
- phrase repetition
- interjection
- revision- incomplete phrase
- prolongation
- tense pause
Some of the major distinguishing features that differentiate normal
disfluency from stuttering are
-The amount of disfluency
-The number of units of repetitions & interjections
-Type of disfluency, especially in relation to the age of the child.
Johnson (1961) classified the following types of speech behavior as
disfluencies:
1. Interjection
2. Part-word repetition
3. Word repetition
4. Phrase repetition
5. Revisions
6. Incomplete phrases
7. Broken words
8. Prolonged sounds
~5~
1) Interjection of sounds, syllables, words or phrases:
This implies extraneous sounds ‘uh’, ‘er’ ‘hmm’; - extraneous words such as
‘well’ which are distinct, from sounds and words associated with the fluent
text or with phonemes included one or more units or repetition of the
interjected material For eg: ‘uh-uh-uh’ are each counted as one instance of
interjection. The number of times the interjection is repeated within each
instance is also noted, ‘uh-uh’ is an example of an interjection; repeated once
and ‘uh-uh-uh’ is an example of an interjection repeated twice.
2. Part- word repetition:
This category has repetitions of parts of words- that is syllables and sounds.
Within each instance of repetition the number of times the sound or syllable
is repeated is counted; ‘box-buy’ involves one unit of repetition and ‘guhguh’ involves two units. This does not distinguish between sound and
syllable repetitions eg: ‘ruh-ruh-ruh’ ‘cuhcome’, ‘ba-ba-baby’ & ‘a-bou -bout’
3. Word repetition:
This category includes repetitions of whole words including words of one
syllable. Both the number of instances and number of repetition units within
each instance are counted. ‘I-I-I’, ‘was- was’ & ‘going’ are samples of
instances of word repetition; the first involves two units of repetition and
each of other two involves two unit. A word repeated for emphasis as in
‘very, very clear’ is not counted as a disfluency.
4. Phrase repetitions:
This category includes repetitions of two or more words.
e.g.: ‘I was I was going’
5. Revisions:
~6~
Instances of revision include those in which the context of a phrase is
modified, or in which there is a grammatical modification. Change in
pronunciation of a word is also counted as a revision.
e.g.: ‘I was- I am going’
6. Incomplete phrases:
One which in the thought or context is not completed and which is not an
instance of phrase repetition.
e.g.: ‘she was- and after she got there he come’.
7. Broken words:
Words which are not completely pronounced and which are not associated
with any other category, or in which the normal rhythm of the word is
broken in a way that definitely interferes with the smooth flow of speech are
characterized by this category.
e.g.: ‘I was g-(pause)- going home’.
8. Prolonged sounds:
This category includes sounds judged to be unduly prolonged. If a sound is
prolonged twice; it is counted both as a prolonged sound and a part- word
repetition.
 Yairi (1981) put forth two types of word repetitions single syllable
word repetition and polysyllabic word repetition. The other six
categories of disfluencies included part – word repetition, phrase
repetition; interjection, revision – incomplete phrase, disrhythmic
phonation (primarily sound prolongation or broken words) and tense
pause (audible tense vocalization between words).
 Janssen and Kraaimaat (1980) categorized dysfluencies into ten types
which include fast repetition of a sound, syllable or monosyllabic
words ; slow repetition of sound, syllable, word or phrase. The other
Dysfluencies are prolongation of a sound, tense block and interjection
of a sound.
~7~
• Manning and Monte (1979) suggested two types of disfluency :
‘motoric’ and ‘formulative”,
• Rudium (1984) reports of a speech phenomenon labeled “articulation
oscillation’ that is, when the final word of an expression ended in an
unvoiced plosive (t.k.p), then one or two repetitions of the same
phoneme was produced.
• Carrell and Tiffany (1960) refer to the pauses, during encoding, as oral
punctuations.
• Carrell and Tiffany (1960) ; Liberman (1967) and sholes (1968)
consider pauses which do not perceptually disrupt the smooth flow of
speech, that is, fluent pauses. However, pauses can disrupt
communication. Martin and Strange (1968) proposed hesitation
pauses that is pauses that disrupt the smooth flow of speech.
• Clarke (1971) differentiates between conventional pauses and
idiosyncratic pauses. Conventional pause is the one that a complete
speaker makes for emphasis or to signal something linguistically
important while an idiosyncratic pause is an aspect of performance
reflecting hesitation or uncertainity over word choice, style or syntax
• Kowal et al (1975) considered unfilled pause as a category of
disfluency. They define unfilled pause as any silence beyond 270 msec.
• De Joy and Gregory (1985) have analyzed nine types of disfluencies.
They are
1) Part word repetitions.
2) Word repetitions
3) Phrase repetitions
4)Revisions
5) Interjection
6) Incomplete phrase and
7) Dysrhythmic phonations (William 1968)
8) Grammatical pauses
9) Ungrammatical pauses.
~8~
 Minifie and Cooker (1964) have suggested that disfluencies can
broadly classified into two basic categories – ‘disfluencies of syllable
insertion’ including repetitions, revisions and interjections, and
‘disfluencies of deliberations’ including pauses and prolongation.
 Disfluencies may not occur singly. Two or more types of disfluencies
can occur successively, they two referred to as compound
disfluencies. There are two types of compound disfluencies.
• Clustering: A term used by Silverman (1969) to describe the
occurrence of more than one disfluency on the same word or
consecutive words or both.
• Oscillation: term used by Mysak (1976) to describe the number
of repetitions per instance of disfluency silverman (1969) refers
to the oscillation phenomenon as a duration of fluency.
Some definitions of stuttering
It has long been recognized that there is no adequate definition for Stuttering
Definitions of stuttering can be classified into
 Broad definitions
 Restrictive definitions
 Statements of the author’s view points with respect to cause and nature of
the disorder
 Descriptive definitions
Broad definitions
They Fail to provide proper limitations, something a good definition tries to do.
1. Stuttering is a disorder of rhythm
2. Stuttering is a deviation in the ongoing fluency of speech, an inability to maintain
the connected rhythms of speech [Then, no one is a normal speaker or, deviation
needs to be further characterized]
~9~
Restrictive definitions
They exclude many people who call themselves stutterers.
1. Stuttering is an anticipatory hypertonic avoidance reaction due to misevaluation
of normal speech [Wendell Johnson]
2. Stuttering is that form of fluency failure that results from conditioned negative
emotion [Brutten and Shoemaker ‘67]
Statements of the author’s view points with respect to cause and nature of the
disorder
1. Stuttering is a psychoneurosis caused by the persistence into later life of early
pre-genital oral nursing, oral sadistic, and anal sadistic components [Coriat ’43]
2. Stuttering is a psychological difficulty and should be diagnosed and described as
well as treated as a morbidity of social consciousness, a hypersensitivity of social
attitude, a pathological social response [Fletcher ‘43]
3. Stuttering is a symptom in a psychopathological condition classified as a
pregenital conversion neurosis [Glauber ’58]
4. Stuttering is an evaluation disorder. It is what when normal non fluency is
eveluated as something to be feared and avoided; it is outwardly, what the
stutter does in an attempt to avoid non-fluency [Johnson, ’64]
Descriptive definitions
The term “stuttering” means I. (a) Disruption in the fluency of verbal expression
which is ( b ) characterised by involuntary, audible or silent, repetitions or
prolongations in the utterance of short speech elements, namely: sounds,
syllables, and words of one syllable. These disruptions (c) usually occur
frequently or are marked in character and (d) are not readily controllable. II.
Sometimes the disruptions are (e) accompanied by accessory activities involving
the speech apparatus, related or unrelated body structures, or stereotyped
speech utterances. These activities give the appearance of being speech related
struggle. III. Also, there are not infrequently (f) indications or reports of the
presence of an emotional state, ranging from a general condition of
“”excitement” or “tension” to more specific emotions of a negative nature such
as fear, embarrassment, irritation, or the like. (g) The immediate source of
stuttering is some incoordination expressed in the peripheral speech
~ 10 ~
mechanism; the ultimate cause is presently unknown and may be complex or
compound (Wingate, 1964, p. 498).
DEVELOPMENT OF FLUENCY IN CHILDREN IS EXPLAINED
USING 4 DIMENSIONS:
The fluency increases in children as they mature. When they first begin
to use speech to convey ideas, their speech lacks fluency. As fluency
increases, they also learn to deal with lapse of fluency in more sophisticated
ways. This growing capacity to talk more easily is paralleled by increasing
demands for fluent speech, demands placed on the children by the people
they communicate with and by themselves. When the child’s capacity for
fluency exceeds these demands, the child will talk fluently but when the child
lacks the capacity to meet the demands for fluency, fluency disorders results.
in most of the children, fluency develops rapidly with the demands and
increasingly fluent speech, with a faster rates a more adult rhythm, more
sophisticated and conventional techniques to deal with breaks in continuity
is the result. They also show co-articulatory undershoot, longer utterances
and use of less effort in talking.
Growth in the capacity for fluent speech comes from several areas:
Increasing control over the movements of the vocal tract, this develops in
several ways:
 growth in the ability to move rapidly and to react rapidly to
stimuli
 increase in coordination ability in movement of vocal tracts
 ability to plan and execute a sequence of movements
The sense of rhythm develops and makes it easier for the child to anticipate
movements of speech production. This gives a motoric confidence to the
child and he starts being fluent.
1. Continuity refers to smooth flow from one sound to another sound in a
syllable or it can be from one word to other in a sentence or from one
~ 11 ~
sentence to other in a paragraph. The flow of speech is affected by
discontinuities or disfluencies.
Development:
Kowal, O'Connel and Sabin( 1975) conducted a study of speech continuity(
and other aspects of fluency) in 168 normal children, aged from
kindergarten to 12th grade.
Task: description of series of snoopy cartoons.
Analysis was done for number of syllables, number and types of
discontinuities, rate of speech, number of syllables per unfilled pause and
duration of unfilled pause per syllable. Discontinuities found in this study
were filled pauses, false starts repetitions of words/part-words and
parenthetical remarks. There was only a modest change in the frequency of
discontinuities from KG to 12th Grade. Thus, just the frequency of
discontinuities is not a good index of fluency development during school
years.
What would affect the continuity of speech?
The type of discontinuities/ disfluencies include filled pauses, unfilled
pauses, repetitions, parenthetical remarks, revisions, false starts, incomplete
phrases, dysrhythmic phonation and tense pause.
a) Pauses:
The pauses in the sequence of speech can be viewed from several
perspectives. Clark (1971) differentiates pauses as conventional and
idiosyncratic.
 Conventional pauses are used by speakers to signal a linguistically
important event.
 Idiosyncratic pauses, on the other hand, reflect hesitation or
uncertainty on the part of the speaker. These pauses indicate a
decision-making process concerning upcoming word choice, style, or
syntax.
Pauses also have been considered as unfilled or filled.
~ 12 ~
 Unfilled pauses are characterized by a silence lasting longer than
approximately 250 milliseconds (Goldman-Eisler, 1958). This
duration is suggested as a convenient threshold for normal silent
intervals during fluent speech, since normal word junctures rarely
exceed this duration (Eg: The juncture necessary to distinguish night
rate from nitrate).
 Filled pauses are characterized by essentially meaningless sounds such
as “ah,” “er,” “uh,” and “um,.” With filled pauses, the flow of sound
continues, but the flow of information does not. Whether the speech is
considered fluent depends on many other features including the
frequency of these pauses along with the occurrence of other aspects
of fluency.
b) Hesitations:
 Hesitations can be complete silence or unfilled pauses or it can be hard
contact of articulators (finding difficulty to move the articulators
smoothly).
 Starkweather stated that these pauses or hesitations may occur for a
variety of reasons:
i) As a planned or practiced pause to create a dramatic effect.
ii) As a lactic to allow time to formulate the cognitive or linguistic
content and sequence of the next utterance.
c) Prolongations:
 Undue persistence of a phoneme. The duration of individual sound is
fixed but if the duration is prolonged beyond that then it is termed as
prolonged.
d) False stars:
 These are grammatical corrections or modification of syllables, words or
incomplete utterances. These grammatical correction can be of different
types :
~ 13 ~
a) Phoneme reversals – Purple – pulpure
b) Verb/tense reversals – She is going – she was going.
c) Negation reversals – I saw white cat no I saw black cat.
e) Parenthetical remarks:
These are meaningful words or phrases but not being used in meaningful
context. Eg: You know, I mean, Ok.
f)Repetitions:
Repetitions are nothing but repeating a song or syllable or word or phrase.
Sometimes there may be sentence repetitions also. David (1939)
extensively defined/described the term ‘repetition’. He gives some
instances where it can be called as repetitions and some not.
 Utterance of a same sound, syllable or word more than once.
 Addition of words like yes/no in repeated sentences does not spoil
the repetition. Eg: I don’t like this no I don’t like this.
 Inclusion of words like “hey,” “too,” still preserves the repetition. Eg:
I am coming. I am coming with you too.
 There can be repetition within a repeated sentence which is called
as two- repetitions. Eg: Keep it in the bag. Keep it keep it in the bag.
 Complete response can be added in the beginning of the following
the response which is considered as phrase repetition. Eg: I want to
go. I want to go there.
 Calling an individuals name repeatedly is still considered as
repetition.
 Absence of definite or indefinite article in a sentence is still
considered as repetition .eg: Put it in bag. Put it in the bag.
 Two complete responses can be repeated in a group and this is
considered as two – repetition.
 Repetition of unintelligible syllable by a child is also considered as
repetition. It may not convey any meaning to adult but might convey
some meaning to children.
Instances where inspite of repetition it cannot be considered as repetition.
~ 14 ~
 Changes of a word in repeated sentence nullify it as a repetition. Eg:
That’s all I wanted to say. That’s all we wanted to say. (This changes
the meaning of a sentence itself so it is not considered as a
repetition).
 Uses of words like “what,” “um,” “ah,” because it shows the inability
of the child to hear something that has been said.
 Introduction of non – identical remark between an identical remark
cancels it as a repetition. Eg: We are not going there are we watch
we are not going there.
 Imitation of sound by a child. Eg: durrr…
 Change in sentence structure invalidates repetition. Eg: I can’t go. I
cannot go.
INDIAN STUDIES ON DEVELOPMENT OF FLUENCY:
Uma Rajan (2000) studied the disfluencies in 60 Malayalam speaking
children between 3 to 8 years of age. The task chosen was picture
description. The materials used were picture of animals for age group of 3 to
4 years and cartoons for 4 to 6 years and pictures depicting Panchatantra
stories for the age group of 6 to 8 years. The result indicated that disfluencies
decreased from 3 years till 6 years. In the age group of 6 to 7 years there was
an increase in the percentage of disfluencies and again decrease from 7 to 8
years. 3 to 4 years group had the highest percentage of disfluencies. Unfilled
pauses were greatest in frequency, in the age range of 3 to 4 years and 4 to 5
years. No phrase repetitions and prolongations were noticed in the age
group of 4 to 5 years. Parenthetical remarks were greatest in the age range
of 5 to 6 years. Audible inspirations were greatest in the age group of 6 to 7
years and filled pauses were maximum between 7 to 8 years.
Anjana and Savithri (2007) analysed the speech samples of 20 kannada
speaking children (10 boys and 10 girls) in the age range 5.1 to 6 years, in an
attempt to identify the disfluencies. The material used included pictures,
cartoons and pictures depicting Panchatantra stories. Frequency and types
of disfluencies and the effect of gender on disfluencies were analysed. Result
showed that majority of the children had almost all the disfluency types. The
~ 15 ~
most prominent disfluency type was sound repetitions. The types least
noted in these children were broken words followed by prolongations. Also,
boys, in general, showed greater percentage of disfluencies compared to
girls.
Ramya (2009) studied the disfluencies in 160 Malayalam speaking children
between age ranges 3 to 7 years using picture description task.
Group I (3 – 3.6) exhibited greatest percentage (35.42%) of disfluency as
compared to other groups. Males were more disfluent than females. The type
of disfluencies seen in 3-3.6 years were unfiled pauses (13.06%) were
greatest in frequency in this age group, followed by audible
inspirations(8.71%), filled pauses (3.95%), parenthetical remarks(2.26%),
prolongations (1.92%), false starts (1.57%), syllable repetitions (1.54%),
word repetitions (1.32%), and part word repetitions (1.09%).
Group II (3.6 -4 years) the most frequently occurring disfluencies in this age
group were unfilled pauses (10.20%) , audible inspirations( 4.45%), and
filled pauses(4.27%), and the least occurring types were
prolongations(1.74%), part word repetitions (0.92%), and phrase
repetitions(0.74%). The percentage of parenthetical remarks (1.11%) was
found to be lowest in this group as compared to other groups.
In group III (4-4.6 years) the type of disfluencies seen were unfilled pauses
(4.7%) were greatest in this group. The least occurring disfluency types
were syllable repetitions (1.31%), word repetitions (1.09%), part word
repetitions (0.88%). The percentage of filled pauses (3.29%) was found to
highest in this group. Prolongations and phrase repetitions were absent in
this group.
In group IV (4.6 – 5years) the type of disfluencies seen were unfilled pauses
(6.62%) were greatest in this group followed by audible
inspirations(4.87%)and filled pauses(4.39%).the least occurring disfluency
in this age group was false starts(1.04%). However Prolongations and
phrase repetitions were absent in this group.
~ 16 ~
In group V (5- 5.6years) the type of disfluencies seen were unfilled pauses
(4.7%) were greatest in this group followed by filled pauses(3.29%) , false
starts(3.65%), and parenthetical remarks(2.78%). the least occurring
disfluency in this age group was part word repetitions (0.88%). The
percentage of false starts was found to be highest in this group as compared
to other groups.
In group VI (5.6 -6 years) the types of disfluencies seen were parenthetical
remarks (4.75%) were greatest in this group followed by unfilled pauses
(3.51%) and false starts. The least occurring type of disfluencies was
prolongations (0.87%) and phrase repetitions (0.69%). The percentage of
parenthetical remarks was found to be highest and of audible inspirations
(2.78%) was found to be lowest.
In group VII (6 – 6.6 years) audible inspirations (5.74%) were found to be
the most occurring disfluency followed by filled pauses (5.05%). The least
occurring type of disfluencies was prolongations (0.52%) and phrase
repetitions (0.34%). The percentage of unfilled pauses (2.26%) was found
to be lowest in this group.
In group VIII (6.6 – 7 years) audible inspirations (5.74%) were found to be
the most occurring disfluency followed by filled pauses (5.27%). The least
occurring type of disfluencies was prolongations (1.04%) and phrase
repetitions (0.69%). The percentage of word repetitions (2.63%) was found
to be highest in this group.
The mean total percentage of disfluencies was found to be
maximum between 3- 3.6 years and then a decline in disfluency was seen till
5- 5.6 years. The percentage of disfluencies were found to be increased in 5.6
– 6 years and then declined at 6- 6.6 years and again increased in 6.6 – 7
years old children.
~ 17 ~
Unfilled pauses were found to be most frequent in the age group of 3- 3.6
to 5- 5.6 years. Unfilled pauses showed a decline from 3- 3.6 years to 6.6 – 7
years. Unfilled pauses were greater in frequency than filled pauses till 5.6 –
6 years. By 6 years, the frequency of filled pauses increased as compared to
unfilled pause. Filled pauses decreased from 3-5 years and after which it
increase.
Audible inspirations were the second most frequent occurring type of
disfluency. It was found to be around 3-3.6 years, then decreased by 4-4.6
years, followed by a sudden increase at 4.6 – 5 years and decline at 5-5.6
years and then increased at 6- 6.6 years. It was found to be most frequently
occurring type of disfluency in the age range of 6- 6.6 to 6.6 – 7 years.
~ 18 ~
Among repetitions, whole word repetitions were found to be the most
frequently occurring disfluency, followed by syllable repetitions, part word
repetitions and phrase repetitions. The word repetitions showed a variable
pattern till 5.6 -6 years of age and then increase is found by that age till 6.6
years. The maximum number of word repetitions was seen in the age range
of 6.6 -7 years. Part word repetitions increased from 3.6 – 4years and then
found to be decreased at the age of 5-5.6 years. Phrase repetitions were
found to be the least occurring type of occurring type of disfluency in all the
age range. No phrase repetitions were observed between 4 to 5.6 years.
Prolongations showed a decline from 3-3.6 years to 4- 4.6 years. It was not
observed in the age group of 4-4.6 years till 5-5.6 years and then found to be
increased from 5.6 – 6 years to 6.6 – 7 years. It was one of the least occurring
types of disfluencies seen in all age groups.
~ 19 ~
Parenthetical remark was one of the frequently occurring disfluency in all
the age groups. It was greatest in the age group of 5.6 – 6 years. However ,
by 6-6.6 years parenthetical remark was decreased.
False starts were found to be increase by around at the age of 5-5.6 years
followed by decrease by 6-6.6 years. False starts showed no significant
difference between 3-3.6 and 4.6 – 5 years.
2. Effort:
Fluent speech is effortless and yet speaking requires some minimal effort.
Effort in fluency is characterized by mental and muscular effort.
Mental effort refers to the speech coding i.e. all the encoding that take place
at the level of central nervous system.
Muscle effort refers to the muscles concerned with speech i.e. peripheral
nervous system activates the muscular coordination of the systems
involved in speech like respiratory, phonatory, resonatory and
articulatory system.
~ 20 ~
It is difficult to measure the former. However, the latter has been measured
in terms of intra – oral pressures for various speech sounds ( Malecot,
1955;Subtenly et al. 1966) also varies with the positions of a sound in the
word, with the rate and loudness of utterance (Subtenly et al. 1966) with
stress ( Umeda, 1964). These effects are attributable to the influence of vocal
tract length and the duration of constrictions in the tract on the
aerodynamics of speech sound productions (Subtenly et al. 1966).
3. Rate:
Rate of speech also signals the perception of fluency. It refers to how quickly
or how slowly the speech may flow. The frequency of occurrence of pauses
in between speech and the duration of each pause determines the rate of
speech. Most people talk about as fast as they can, as indicated by Tiffany
(1980), who noted that the maximum and ordinary rates of speech tend to
be similar. Young adult speakers of English average approximately five
syllables per second (Picket, 1980; Stetson, 1951; Walker & Black, 1950). But
it varies from speaker to speaker.
The rate of speech is influenced by the type of syllable, length of utterance,
type of speech (whispered speech), speaking situation and perception of
information transmission. The duration of speech sound is directly related
to fluency.
Development of rate:
Rate shows clear developmental trends. These trends are evident in several
different measures pause duration, length of utterance, syllables per second
and segment duration.
Pause duration: The duration of unfilled pauses diminishes rapidly from
kindergarten to second grade and then continues to diminish more gradually
during the rest of the school years (Kowal, O'Connel and Sabin 1975).
 During school years, the duration of unfilled pauses is longer in males
than in females ( Kowal, O'Connel and Sabin 1975).
~ 21 ~
 The duration of unfilled pause is an excellent measure of fluency. ( Kowal,
O'Connel and Sabin 1975) defined unfilled pauses as any silence longer
than 270 msec. the duration of unfilled pauses affects both speech and
language fluency as it is dependent of language fluency.
Syllable production:
 The rate of speech in syllable per second increasres steadily during the
school years (Kowal, O'Connel and Sabin 1975).
 The rate of speech is faster for loner utterance than shorter utterance
both in adults and in preschool children (Amster, 1984).
 The rate of speech in preschool children is slow and lacks the features of
adult speech rhythm (Allen and Hawkins, 1989).
Duration of segments:
 The duration of segments is shorter in longer word than shorter word
(Klatt; Umeda 1975, 1977, Draley and Spriesterbach, 1978).
 The duration of segments is more influenced by utterance length in older
than in younger children ( Disimoni, 1974)
 Coarticulatory overlap increases with age (Kuchn and Tomblin 1974:
Thompson and Hixon 1979, Kent, 1983).
 Adult speakers of English speak at an average rate of 5 to 6 syllables per
second( Walker and Black, 1950)
 The rate at which continous syllables can be produced is a function of –
speed of articulatory movement and the degree of coarticulatory overlap
(Gay, 1978, Starkweather, 1981).
 The rate of speech is faster in longer utterances( Malecot, Johnson and
Kizziar, 1972)
4. Rhythm:
Development:
 Young children (18-36mths) are unable to imitate sentences lacking
normal rhythm (Eilers, 1975)
~ 22 ~
 Children’s early productions have only stressed syllables.( Hawkins,
1979; Keating and Kubaska, 1978)
 Children’s productions of forms that are polysyllabic in their adult form
are more likely to omit initial unstressed syllables than unstressed
syllables that follow stressed ones.e.g. /we/ for away, /naene/ for
banana.
DIMENSIONS OF FLUENCY
In order to appreciate the nature of nonfluent speech production, it is
necessary to understand the dimensions of fluent speech. Starkweather
(1987) considered fluency as a multidimensional behavior. And the
dimensions of fluency suggested are:
As suggested by Starkweather, 1981, the dimensions of fluency are:
I. Continuity or Smoothness of Speech,
II. Rate of Speech,
III. Effort a speaker makes in producing Speech.
All these are very broad categories, each of which consists of several
variables.
Starkweather (1982) again suggested a fourth category, i.e.
IV. Rhythmic Structure Speech
In these four dimensions, Continuity, rate, & rhythm are traditionally been
considered aspects of Speech timing.
Effort is the primary dimension of fluency (Starkweather, 1982) and timing
variables are secondary simply reflection of effort.
I) Continuity or Smoothness of Speech:
~ 23 ~
Fluent Speech is continuous but in addition to the flow of sounds & syllables,
flow of information should also be continuous. Continuity of Speech can be
disrupted by HESITATIONS & PAUSES, in addition to REPETITIONS of sounds,
syllables, words & phrases, PROLONGATION of sounds, false starts etc. It would
be mistake to think of hesitations & pauses as errors in speech production because
they can arise as a result of physiological(breathing), syntactic, cognitive,
affective, & Social interaction variables.(Dalton & Hardcastle, 1977).
Continuity relates to the degree to which syllables and words are logically
sequenced as well as the presence or absence of pauses. If the semantic units
follow one another in continual flow of information, the speech is interpreted as
fluent. If, however, the unit of speech fails to flow in a logical sequence,
information doesn’t flow, despite the continual flow of sounds and the absence
of pauses, the speech is not thought of as fluent.
Another aspect of continuity has to do with a disruption in the flow
of sound in the form of pauses. Clark (1971) differentiates pauses as:
1. Conversational
2. Idiosyncratic
It can also be divided as:
1. Unfilled Pauses
2. Filled Pauses
Findings:
Unfilled Pauses occur on average every 4.8 words when speakers were providing
narrative descriptions & every 7.5 words when they were engaged in discussion
(Goldman-Eisler, 1968).
In both of these cases, the speech was perceived by listeners to be “Continuous”.
Half of “Continuous” Speech time is divided into phrases that are less than three
words long with pauses between each phrases.(Goldman-Eisler,1958;1968)
Hesitation & Pauses are more common in material that is syntactically more
complex
(Kochester & Gill, 1973; Cook, smith & ralljee, 1974)
~ 24 ~
Speakers pause longer before content words than before function words.
(Boomer, 1965; Mcclay & Osgood, 1965)
II) Rate of speech:
No. of syllables uttered per unit time .It should only be interpreted as
complimentary factor in determining the fluency & therefore stuttering. The rate
of utterances in normal speaker is adjusted according to such factors as Stylistic
effects, biological demands on speech systems, cognitive processing and also by
the constraint placed on the physiological system including such factors as the
intrinsic speed of the articulatory activity and the transmission time for motor
impulses to the speech muscles. The ratedoes not appear as a primary dimension.
Findings:
Adult Speakers of English produce about 5 syllables per second during
continuous conversation speech.
(Walker & Black, 1950; miller, 1951)
In French, the rate is only slightly faster at 5.73 syllables per second.
(Malecot, Jhonson, & Kizziar, 1972)
The speech rate of women is more variable & their utterances are longer than
men’s, although they didn’t find a significant sex difference in rate, such
difference do existat younger ages, but apparently not in adults.
(Malecot, Jhonson, & Kizziar, 1972)
The rate at which continuous (i.e. pauses excluded) syllables can be
produced is a function of :
A) Speed of articulatory movement
B) The degree of coarticulatory overlap (Gay, 1978; Starkweather,
1981)
A) Duration:
~ 25 ~
The duration of the consonants & vowels of a language varies considerably with
speech rate & phonetic & linguistic context.
Ex. Stressed Syllables are longer than unstressed ones (Umeda, 1975)
Sounds Syllables are longer at the initiation & termination of syllables, words,
& Phrases. (Fowler, 1978)
Much of what occurs in terms of duration of individual sound segments & words
appears to be related to the Speaker’s anticipated flow of information during an
utterance.
(Starkweather, 1987)
That is, the speaker may not need all aspects of upcoming utterances in terms of
necessary respiratory, Promontory, & articulatory events.
Rather, the speaker would only need to have some idea about the amount of
information the utterance should contain.
Once the relative length of the utterance is anticipated, the relative length of
utterance & Corresponding units of sentence would be consolidated into the
planned production.
B) Coarticulation:
Refers to the fact that adjacent speech gestures can influence & interfere
with each other.
Findings:
 Coarticulatory overlap extends to adjacent sounds, & it may extend beyond
immediately adjacent sounds. (Amerman, Daniloff & Moll, 1970).In a
VCV utterance, the production of the first vowel may be influenced by the
second vowel, inspite the presence of the intervening consonant. (Ohman,
1966)
 When the rate of speech is increased by instruction to talk faster, the extent
of coarticulation is greater.
(Gay & Hirose, 1973; gay et al, 1974)
III) Effort:
Ease of speech production. It could be mental or muscular.
~ 26 ~
Mental effort is difficult to quantify and also thought are focused on the content
rather than on the process of utterance.
Muscular effort refers to the aerodynamic, laryngeal & articulatory execution in
producing speech.
Important Clinical sign
An abnormal amount of effort devoted to the production of speech
Too much of thinking time
Too much of muscular effort
Findings:
Alpha wave activity in location of the brain known to be associated
with speech diminishes just before a person speaks.(Linebaugh, 1975)
Stops & fricatives require more effort than the nasals & glides, as measured by
intraoral pressure. (Malecot,1955;Subtenly,Worth & Sakuda,1966)
Voiced sounds have lower intraoral air pressure than the unvoiced sound.
(Subtenly et al, 1966)
Consonants introducing Stressed syllables have higher intraoral air pressure
values than those introducing unstressed syllables. (Subtenly et al, 1966).
Probably because of the additional airflow that results from additional abdominal
force (Netsell, 1970)
IV) Rhythm:
Rather than being a dimension of fluency, rhythm seems to promote or
enhance fluency. Specifically, it seems that speech rhythm serves fluency by
making it easier for us to talk faster. It does this in several ways- unstressed
syllables are shorter and thus require less time. In addition rhythm assists
in rapid speech production by providing a means for us to anticipate
upcoming movements. Martin (1972) says ‘rhythmic patterns carry a heavy
information load in ordinary connected speech.
~ 27 ~
~ 28 ~