Developing an innovative, objective, child-friendly, clinical measurement to assess speech motor skills in children who stutter
- Conditions
- stammeringstuttering10029305
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- Pending
- Sex
- Not specified
- Target Recruitment
- 110
Eligible participants are children:
- aged 3;6-5;6 years or aged 7;6-10;0 years
- who stutter with a stuttering severity rating of at least a 2 (mild
stuttering) on an 8-point scale judged by the parents and by the therapist
A group of recovered 7;6-10;0-year old children will be included as well.
Recovered participants can be included when:
- stuttering was diagnosed by a speech pathologist and has been present for at
least 6 months.
- stuttering is absent for at least 18 months at time of inclusion
A group of control children can be included:
- aged 3;6-5;6 years or aged 7;6-10;0 years
- who do not stutter and have never stuttered.
Exclusion criteria are:
- a diagnosis of an emotional, behavioral, learning or neurological disorder
- a lack of proficiency in Dutch for children.
- a hearing disorder with insufficient access to spoken language, judged by
audiologist
Study & Design
- Study Type
- Observational non invasive
- Study Design
- Not specified
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method <p>The primary outcome measure of this study is the the envelope-based spatial<br /><br>temporal index (ESTI -. on a continuous scale), an acoustic outcome measure<br /><br>that has been recently described by the Oral Dynamics lab, University of<br /><br>Toronto (15). ESTI measures the spatial and temporal variability of 5<br /><br>repetitions of one single target word. A total, mean ESTI score for the total<br /><br>set of probe words will be calculated.<br /><br>Firstly, the total ESTI score will be related to two perceptual SMS judgements:<br /><br>a.) total score of Oral Motor Assessment Scale - OMAS (12) and b.) % stuttered<br /><br>syllables in a sample of 300-500 syllables of spontaneous speech.<br /><br>Secondly, ESTI will be used to discriminate between the five participant<br /><br>groups.<br /><br>Furthermore, scripts to automatically measure ESTI will be written in Praat,<br /><br>(2) - open source software specifically developed for the acoustic analysis of<br /><br>speech.</p><br>
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method <p>Secondary outcomes will be:<br /><br>1. The lip aperture variability index score, indicating the maximum movement<br /><br>range between the upper and lower lip, analyzed using open source opto-track<br /><br>software, OpenMoCap (1). The lip aperture variability index will be used as a<br /><br>physiologically control variable for adaptations in speech movements, such as<br /><br>bigger movements in more complex target words.<br /><br>2. Difference-scores between sub-scores of ESTI for different levels of<br /><br>complexity of the probe words. For easy and difficult probe words on a.) the<br /><br>motor level and b.) the cognitive-linguistic level ESTI scores will be<br /><br>calculated and a difference-ESTI will be calculated. These difference-ESTI<br /><br>scores will be used to compare participant groups as well.</p><br>