ارزیابی پردازش زمانی شنیداری در کودکان مبتلا به لکنت رشدی
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Methods
3- Results
4- Discussion
References
Abstract
Objective: Stuttering is a developmental disorder of speech production with a dynamic and multifactorial nature. Scientific theories mentioned the role of auditory processing disorder in stuttering. Investigating the auditory processing in stuttering would provide insights into the mechanisms of stuttering. The details of basic auditory processing in children with stuttering (CWS) continue to remain uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the auditory temporal processing (ATP) in CWS and also its relationship with the stuttering severity. Methods: The participants of this comparative cross-sectional study were 54 CWS and 63 children without stuttering (CWOS). All children were between 7 and 12 years old. ATP ability of the participants was measured using the Backward Masking (BM), Duration Pattern (DP), and Gap in Noise (GIN) tests. Then, the groups were compared in terms of ATP results. The correlation between the scores of these tests and stuttering severity was assessed. Results: According to the results, CWS showed poorer performance on DP, BM and GIN tests when compared with CWOS. Moreover, the stuttering severity had a significant negative correlation with the DP scores and percentage of correct identification scores in GIN; whereas it had a significant positive correlation with the BM thresholds. Conclusions: The results showed that some CWS have ATP disorder, which could exacerbate their stuttering. These findings highlighted the role of ATP disorder in stuttering.
Introduction
Stuttering is a common childhood developmental disorder, which affects speech fluency [1]. It may recover spontaneously, otherwise requires long-term intensive therapeutic sessions, which typically have adverse impacts on the psychological and social health of children and their family [2,3]. Stuttering is characterized by repetition of a syllable or a part of a syllable, prolongation of sounds, and frequent interruptions in speech [4]. The prevalence of stuttering in childhood is between 4% and 5%; about 1% of this population will continue to have persistent stuttering until adulthood [5]. The underlying cause of stuttering continues to remain unknown. According to current theories, stuttering is defined as a dynamic and multifactorial disorder, which occurs due to the effects of complex interactions between atypical speech motor control system, auditory processing, language and other cognitive processing, genetic, emotions, and social factors [6]. Auditory processing is a neural mechanism, which has been emphasized in numerous theories for its role in stuttering [7]. According to the Direction of Velocities into Articulators (DIVA) model, the auditory system has a role in activating and tuning speech sound maps and forming internal speech control models (feedforward and feedback models) through neural representation of sounds via processing others' speech, receiving self-produced speech feedback, and interacting with motor cortex [8]. Proposing the “internal model and feedback-biased motor control theory,” Max et al. (2004) assumed that stuttering is due to a mismatch between predicted (feedforward) and actual (feedback) auditory consequences of speech.The researchers attributed this mismatch and speech error to the auditory feedback control pathway [9].