Effect of Syntactic Structure on the Frequency of Stuttering in Japanese Children Who Stutter

—Comparison between Relative and Coordinate Clauses—

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether syntactic structure affects the frequency of stuttering in Japanese children using sentences with relative and coordinate clauses. The participants were 11 elementary school children aged 6 to 11 who stuttered. Ten sentences with a relative clause and 10 sentences with a coordinate clause were used as stimulus sentences. The results were as follows. The frequency of stuttering in sentences with a relative clause was not different from that in sentences with a coordinate clause. Furthermore, we found no remarkable difference in the loci of stuttering between relative and coordinate clauses. These results suggest that syntactic structure does not directly affect the frequency or loci of stuttering.