New Guidelines for Assessing Neurogenic Stuttering

InroductionNeurogenic stuttering is an acquired disorder of speech fluency in adults resulting most commonly from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and stroke. Neurogenic stuttering frequently co-occurs with aphasia and dysarthria. It is important to consider what makes the core of neurogenic stuttering and which disfluencies are related to aphasia.MethodsWe examined neurogenic stuttering characteristics in five male patients with TBI. Speech fluency was assessed in three tasks. The new guideline for identifying stuttering and discriminating it from co-occurring speech and language deficiencies was created.ResultsWe found out that a) stuttering frequencies varied between different speech tasks, b) the most common stuttering type was repetition and c) the severity of stuttering increased linearly as the cognitive demands of the task increased and so did the types of stuttering.ConclusionMore research in the area of neurogenic stuttering is needed, especially for developing valid and reliable methods that take into account co-occurring speech and language deficiencies and communicative demands in various discourses.