Difficulty in Segmental Transition of the First Syllables Among Japanese Children Who Stutter: Focus on Compound Word Production

Abstract

It is proposed that in Japanese, the transition from the core vowels of the first syllables of words to the subsequent segments affects the occurrence of stuttering. This study aimed to investigate whether this segmental transition affects the frequency of stuttering with not only simple words but also with compound words. Participants were 14 school-age children who stuttered. Reading tasks of 16 simple and 16 compound words were used. The results showed that the frequency of stuttering on words with an inter-syllabic transition was significantly higher than on those with an intra-syllabic transition for both simple and compound words. These results suggest that the transition from core vowels in the first syllables of words affects the occurrence of stuttering not only in simple word production, but in compound word production as well. In addition, the frequency of stuttering with each type of transition was not significantly different between simple and compound words. These results suggest that the morphological factor that combines words would not significantly affect the occurrence of stuttering in school-age children.