Paul Brocklehurst

Background theory & research

• Covert Repair Hypothesis• Vicious Circle Hypothesis

Our own stuff• Speakers’ perceptions of disfluency in the speech of others• Perfectionism & disfluency

• monitoring our own speech while speaking

– We all do it

• monitoring our own speech while speaking

– We all do it

– but to varying extents

• monitoring our own speech while speaking• Appropriacy of message

– Do I really want to say this?

• Linguistic quality– Syntax– Words– Phonology– Timing/speech-rate

• Acoustic quality– Loudness– Pitch– Clarity

See Levelt (1989) for an in depth discussion

• Overt speech– Auditory feedback

• Just like monitoring other people’s speech• Relatively slow

– Proprioceptive & stretch receptor feedback• Dependent on prior knowledge of what speech feels like• Relatively slow

• Inner speech– Monitoring the inner-voice (~ = monitoring thoughts)

• Fast

• “errors” do not normally disrupt the flow of speech;• however, error repairs do.

• Speakers stand to gain an advantage if they are able to detect and repair errors as quickly as possible.

• Speakers stand to gain an advantage if they detect and repair errors covertly in inner speech – before articulation begins

• Speakers stand to gain an advantage if they are able to detect and repair errors as quickly as possible.

• Speakers stand to gain an advantage if they edit their speech covertly in inner speech – before articulation begins• But for this they might have to slow down

• PWS are disfluent because their phonological encoding abilities are impaired – they make (and covertly repair) many phonological encoding errors– Their covert repairs also contain errors… sparking off more repairs

Stuttering phenomenology – no problem with phonology in inner-speech

Picture copied from: http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/isad7/papers/badmington7/badmington17.html

• Abandons the assumption that phonological encoding is impaired in PWS.

• Keeps the core assumption of the Covert Repair Hypothesis, – that disfluencies are covert self-corrections.

• Self corrections of WHAT?

• PWS try to repair/correct their disfluencies

• “Our proposal is, paradoxically, that individuals who stutter do so because they are trying to avoid it”.

• PWS have become hypersensitive to their normal disfluencies

• they apply overly strict acceptability criteria.

• They consider disfluencies to be “errors”

• PWS have become hypersensitive to their normal disfluencies

• they apply overly strict acceptability criteria.

• They consider disfluencies to be “errors”

• PWS have become hypersensitive to their normal disfluencies

• they apply overly strict acceptability criteria.

• They consider disfluencies to be “errors”

2 pieces of research that relate to the VCH…

Lickley et al.(2005)

Listeners were asked to rate recordings of fluent and normally disfluent speech spoken by PWS and PNS

Type of speech recording

• Recordings of PWS were rated more negatively irrespective of whether or

not those recordings contained disfluencies.• Findings suggest even fluent speech of PWS is not normal

Listeners were asked to rate recordings of fluent and disfluent speech spoken by PWS and PNS

Type of speech recording

• Recordings of PWS were rated more negatively irrespective of whether or

not those recordings contained disfluencies.• Findings suggest even fluent speech of PWS is not normal

Listeners were asked to rate recordings of fluent and disfluent speech spoken by PWS and PNS

Type of speech recording

• Recordings of PWS were rated more negatively irrespective of whether or

not those recordings contained disfluencies.• Findings suggest even fluent speech of PWS is not normal

Listeners who stutter were also asked to rate the same recordings

Type of speech recording

• All ratings made by listeners who stutter were more negative.• Suggests PWS are more sensitive to disfluencies… and/or more likely to

interpret speech as disfluent.

Listeners who stutter were also asked to rate the same recordings

Type of speech recording

• All ratings made by listeners who stutter were more negative.• Suggests PWS are more sensitive to disfluencies… and/or more likely to

interpret speech as disfluent.

Listeners who stutter were also asked to rate the same recordings

Type of speech recording

• All ratings made by listeners who stutter were more negative.• Suggests PWS are more sensitive to disfluencies… and/or more likely to

interpret speech as disfluent.

Conclusion• “the self-monitor becomes hyper-vigilant because the

speaker is aware that his/her speech is habitually deviant, even when it is not, strictly speaking, disfluent”.

Brocklehurst & Corley (submitted)

Perhaps a perfectionistic personality may lead to hyper-vigilant monitoring, and a tendency to evaluate minor disfluencies as “errors”

“demanding of oneself or others a higher quality of performance than is required by the situation”

(Hollender, 1965, p94)

Burns perfectionism scale completed by respondents twice – current and retrospective (“how you would have answered it as a young child”)

“People Who Stutter tend to be significantly more perfectionistic than people who do not stutter”

47 PWS (mean age 41.65) 22 controls (mean age 43.76)ANOVA, main effect: stutterers vs. controls, F= 10.91 p = .0012

An online survey– Replicate and extend Amster’s (1995) findings

using the

Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS: Frost et al., 1990)

Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS)(Frost et al.,1990) – 35 statements – 6 factors

1. Concern over mistakes• e.g. “I should be upset if I make a mistake”

2. Personal standards • e.g. “I set higher goals than most people”

3. Parental expectations• e.g. “My parents set very high standards for me”

4. Parental criticism • e.g. “as a child I was punished for doing things less than perfectly”

5. Doubts about actions • e.g. “even when I do something carefully, I often feel that it is not quite right”

6. Organization• e.g. “Organization is very important to me”

• Respondents give Likert style ratings… 1= totally agree, 5=totally disagree• On all subscales, higher scores equated with perfectionistic personality

• 81 people who stutter• 82 non-stuttering controls

– all respondents completed the FMPS

– respondents who stutter also gave ratings of “difficulty speaking fluently”

- in 10 different common speaking situations.

• PWS disfluency scores were based on the OASES self-rating scale. Yaruss & Quesal, 2006)

Questions…• Do respondents’ FMPS self-ratings predict whether or not

they belong to the group of respondents who stutter?

• Do stuttering respondents’ FMPS self-ratings predict how much difficulty they experience speaking fluently?

Multiple regression analyses

PWS n = 59 Controls n = 57

Findings

Stuttering group membership predicted by

• Raised “Concern over Mistakes”• Lower “Personal Standards”

PWS n = 81

Findings

PWS: Difficulty speaking fluently predicted by

• Raised “Concern over Mistakes”• Lower “Personal Standards”

Conclusions

• (1) Stuttering, and (2) severity of disfluency (in respondents who stutter)

are both related to…

• High levels of Concern over Mistakes• Low Personal Standards

• This is not a “perfectionistic” profile– These findings do not suggest that respondents who stutter are more perfectionistic

than controls.

• This FMPS profile may reflect attempts of respondents’ who stutter to adapt to an underlying speech/language impairment

• Lowering personal speaking standards may be of benefit to PWS, although the underlying impairment still remains.

To classify something as an “error” frequently involves • Drawing a line where, objectively speaking, no line exists

Disfluencies may result from speakers’ attempts to repair their errors

Disfluencies are not always “bad” They can help listeners maintain appropriate attentionThey can highlight key parts of an utteranceThey can assist listener comprehension by forcing the speaker to slow down

Trying to avoid disfluencies can cause disfluency rates to increase

To classify something as an “error” frequently involves • Drawing a line where, objectively speaking, no line exists

Disfluencies may result from speakers’ attempts to repair their errors

Disfluencies are not always “bad” They can help listeners maintain appropriate attentionThey can highlight key parts of an utteranceThey can assist listener comprehension by forcing the speaker to slow down

Trying to avoid disfluencies can cause disfluency rates to increase

To classify something as an “error” frequently involves • Drawing a line where, objectively speaking, no line exists

Disfluencies may result from speakers’ attempts to repair their errors

Disfluencies are not always “bad” They can help listeners maintain appropriate attentionThey can highlight key parts of an utteranceThey can help listeners to remember what has been said

Trying to avoid disfluencies can cause disfluency rates to increase

To classify something as an “error” frequently involves • Drawing a line where, objectively speaking, no line exists

Disfluencies may result from speakers’ attempts to repair their errors

Disfluencies are not always “bad” They can help listeners maintain appropriate attentionThey can highlight key parts of an utteranceThey can assist listener comprehension by forcing the speaker to slow down

Trying to avoid disfluencies can cause disfluency rates to increase

Any questions???

Amster, B. J. (1995). Perfectionism and stuttering. In C. Starkweather, & H. (. Peters, Stuttering: proceedings of first world congress on fluency disorders (pp. 540-543). Nijmegen, Netherlands: Nijmegen University Press.

Frost, R. O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Researach, 14 , 449-468.

Hockett, C. F. (1973). Where the tongue slips, there slip I. In V. A. Fromkin (Ed.), Speech errors as linguistic evidence (pp. 93-119). The Hague: Mouton.

Levelt, W. J. (1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge MA: Cambridge MIT Press.Lickley, R., Hartsuiker, R. J., Corley, M., Russell, M., & Nelson, R. (2005). Judgment of disfluency in

people who stutter and people who do not stutter: Results from magnitude estimation. Language and Speech, 48 , 299–312.

Postma, A., & Kolk, H. (1993). The covert repair hypothesis: Prearticulatory repair processes in normal and stuttered disfluencies. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 36 , 472-487.

Vasić, N., & Wijnen, F. (2005). Stuttering as a monitoring deficit. In R. J. Hartsuiker, Y. Bastiaanse, A. Postma, & F. Wijnen (Eds.), Phonological encoding and monitoring in normal and pathological speech (pp. 226-247). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Yaruss, J. S., & Quesal, R. W. (2006). Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering (OASES): Documenting multiple outcomes in stuttering treatment. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 31 , 90-115.