Stuttering is a speech disorder characterized by disruptions in speech fluency, typically marked by the presence of prolongations, repetitions, and blocks. There is no single known cause of stuttering. Instead, stuttering is thought to be a dynamic, multifactorial disorder resulting from interactions between genes, language, motor, and other cognitive skills, and the environment (Smith, 1999). Among preschool-age children who begin to stutter, approximately 80% will recover naturally (de Sonneville-Koedoot, Stollk, Rietveld, & Franken, 2015; Yairi & Ambrose, 2005; Yairi & Ambrose, 1999; Yairi & Seery, 2015). However, to date it is not clear why some children persist in stuttering while others recover. One potential factor that may contribute to stuttering is auditory processing. Previous studies have found that nonlinguistic auditory processing differs between adults and children who stutter (CWS) and their fluent peers (Hampton & Weber-Fox, 2008; Kaganovich et al., 2010). The current study aimed to extend previous findings by evaluating neural indices of nonlinguistic auditory processing in young CWS who will eventually persist (CWS-ePer) and eventually recover (CWS-eRec). CWS-ePer exhibited atypical early neural markers of auditory processing compared to CWS-eRec and fluent peers. Additionally, with increased cognitive demands, or short recovery time between sounds, CWS-ePer and CWS-eRec both exhibited atypical early auditory processes. Together, these findings indicate that early auditory processing and attention skills may play a role in persistence of developmental stuttering.
Read
