Effect of Length of Low Bi-Mora Frequency Nonwords on Stuttering Frequency in School-Age Children Who Stutter

Abstract

Phonological/phonetic factors of word onset are reported to affect stuttering frequency. If this is the case, no significant differences should be observed in stuttering frequency between long and short words. In this study, we investigated the effect of word length on stuttering frequency in Japanese school-age children who stutter. The participants were 17 Japanese children aged 7 to 11 who stuttered. We used 2syllable-2mora, 3syllable-3mora, 4syllable-4mora, and 5syllable-5mora nonwords whose bi-mora frequencies are lower than those of the stimuli used in previous research. Results indicated that the stuttering frequency with 5syllable-5mora words was significantly higher than with 2syllable-2mora words. Based on these results, we argued that there are children whose stuttering cannot be explained only by word onset factors.