Research reveals that children who stutter (CWS) complete nonword repetition tasks(NRTs) with poorer accuracy compared to children who do not stutter (CWNS). The primary aim of this study was to examine the contribution of phonological abilities to NRT performance accuracy in CWS. The second aim of this study was to assess error characteristics, specifically the location of errors on the longest nonword, to determine if error profiles differentiated children in each of the groups. We examined NRT scores from 54 preschoolers (35 CWS and 19 CWNS). CWS were then placed into different groups based on phonological abilities: CWS with speech sound disorders (CWS+SSD) and CWS with typical speech sounds (CWS+TSS). On average, CWS+SSD had significantly higher error rates than CWS+TSS and CWNS on each of the four nonwords. Children in all groups made the highest number of errors on the 4-syllable nonwords. Errors committed on all four syllables of NW 4 predicted membership into CWS+SSD group, while error rates on the first syllable also predicted membership into CWS+TSS group. Comparing performance among all groups revealed that having a concomitant SSD played a significant role in poorer NRT performance in the subgroup of CWS. Errors committed on the 4-syllable nonwords also revealed subtle differences in phonological working memory strategies between CWS and CWNS. Taken together, these findings help shed light on poorer NRT performance in stuttering and enhance generalization of findings to populations of CWS with a range of phonological abilities.
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