Dataset Information

Adults who stutter lack the specialised pre-speech facilitation found in non-stutterers.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Persistent developmental stuttering is a speech fluency disorder defined by its symptoms, where the underlying neurophysiological causes remain uncertain. This study examined the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of the speech planning process, using facilitation in the motor cortex during speech preparation as an analogue.

Methods

transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses induced motor evoked potentials (MEPs), which were recorded from the tongue. Eighteen adults who stutter (AWS) and 17 adults who do not stutter (ANS) completed three experiments, which involved reading a German prefix+verb utterance from a screen. Each experiment involved 120 trials with three distinct levels of speech production: immediate speech, delayed speech without pacing and delayed speech with predefined pacing. TMS was applied shortly before speech onset. Trial MEPs were normalised to average non-speech MEPs. MEP amplitude, MEP facilitation ratio (amplitude: pre-speech offset) and group difference were the outcomes of interest analysed by multiple regression, as well as speech reaction time analysed by correlation.

Results

MEP values were 11·1%-23·4% lower in AWS than ANS (by standardised Beta), across all three experiments. MEP facilitation ratio slopes were also 4·9%-18·3% flatter in AWS than ANS across all three experiments. Reaction times for AWS were only significantly slower than for ANS in immediate speech and predefined pacing experiments. No stuttering was detected during the trials. The group difference in immediate speech was 100% and 101% greater than the other two experiments respectively.

Discussion

While performance of both ANS and AWS worsens under disturbed speech conditions, greater disturbance conditions affected controls worse than AWS. Future research and therapy in stuttering should focus on non-disturbed speech.

SUBMITTER: Whillier A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6179203 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Adults who stutter lack the specialised pre-speech facilitation found in non-stutterers.

Whillier Alexander A Hommel Sina S Neef Nicole E NE Wolff von Gudenberg Alexander A Paulus Walter W Sommer Martin M

PloS one 20181010 10

<h4>Objectives</h4>Persistent developmental stuttering is a speech fluency disorder defined by its symptoms, where the underlying neurophysiological causes remain uncertain. This study examined the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms of the speech planning process, using facilitation in the motor cortex during speech preparation as an analogue.<h4>Methods</h4>transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses induced motor evoked potentials (MEPs), which were recorded from the tongue. Eighteen ...[more]

PMID: 30303960

Similar Datasets

Project description:See Crinion (doi:10.1093/brain/awy075) for a scientific commentary on this article.Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting 5% of children, and persisting in 1% of adults. Promoting lasting fluency improvement in adults who stutter is a particular challenge. Novel interventions to improve outcomes are of value, therefore. Previous work in patients with acquired motor and language disorders reported enhanced benefits of behavioural therapies when paired with transcranial direct current stimulation. Here, we report the results of the first trial investigating whether transcranial direct current stimulation can improve speech fluency in adults who stutter. We predicted that applying anodal stimulation to the left inferior frontal cortex during speech production with temporary fluency inducers would result in longer-lasting fluency improvements. Thirty male adults who stutter completed a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over left inferior frontal cortex. Fifteen participants received 20 min of 1-mA stimulation on five consecutive days while speech fluency was temporarily induced using choral and metronome-timed speech. The other 15 participants received the same speech fluency intervention with sham stimulation. Speech fluency during reading and conversation was assessed at baseline, before and after the stimulation on each day of the 5-day intervention, and at 1 and 6 weeks after the end of the intervention. Anodal stimulation combined with speech fluency training significantly reduced the percentage of disfluent speech measured 1 week after the intervention compared with fluency intervention alone. At 6 weeks after the intervention, this improvement was maintained during reading but not during conversation. Outcome scores at both post-intervention time points on a clinical assessment tool (the Stuttering Severity Instrument, version 4) also showed significant improvement in the group receiving transcranial direct current stimulation compared with the sham group, in whom fluency was unchanged from baseline. We conclude that transcranial direct current stimulation combined with behavioural fluency intervention can improve fluency in adults who stutter. Transcranial direct current stimulation thereby offers a potentially useful adjunct to future speech therapy interventions for this population, for whom fluency therapy outcomes are currently limited.

Dataset Information

Adults who stutter lack the specialised pre-speech facilitation found in non-stutterers.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Publications

Adults who stutter lack the specialised pre-speech facilitation found in non-stutterers.

Similar Datasets

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