Abstract

ANDRADE, Claudia Regina Furquim de; SASSI, Fernanda Chiarion; JUSTE, Fabiola Staróbole  and  MEIRA, Maria Isis Marinho. Speech and non-speech activities in stuttering: a preliminary study. Pró-Fono R. Atual. Cient. [online]. 2008, vol.20, n.1, pp. 67-70. ISSN 0104-5687.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-56872008000100012.

BACKGROUND: stuttering. AIM: to compare muscle activation in fluent and stuttering individuals during speech and non-speech tasks. METHOD: six adults divided in two groups: G1 - three fluent individuals; G2 - three stuttering individuals. Muscle activity (surface electromyography) was captured by disposable electrodes fixed in four regions. Testing situations: muscle rest tension, speech reaction time, non-verbal activity, verbal activity. RESULTS: There was no significant statistical difference between the groups for the rest tension; G2 present longer speech reaction times; G2 presented muscle activity during the non-verbal task similar to that observed during rest; Muscle activity of G1 and G2 during the verbal task demonstrated to be similar. CONCLUSION: these results suggests that for G2 there is a poor control of timing for the coordination of motor processes.

Keywords : Fluency; Stuttering; Speech; Electromyography.