Understanding Fluency Disorders: Definitions, Core Features, Prevalence, and Treatment - P, Study notes of Speech-Language Pathology

Download Understanding Fluency Disorders: Definitions, Core Features, Prevalence, and Treatment - P and more Study notes Speech-Language Pathology in PDF only on Docsity! Communication Disorder Fluency Disorders Defining Fluency  Stuttering: An onomatopoeic that well captures the stops, starts, and hesitations in speech of persons with fluency disorders  Fluency: A descriptive term used to characterize the flow of speech during communication. Speech that is fluent moves along at an appropriate rate with an easy rhythm; it is smooth, effortless, automatic.  Disfluency: Disrupted in rhythm, smoothness, effort, or automaticity. The speech behavior that disrupts the fluent forward flow of speech, such as pauses, interjections, and revisions. Defining fluency disorder  Fluency disorder describes speech with an unusually high rate of stoppages that disrupt the flow of communication and are inappropriate for the speaker’s age, culture, and linguistic background, including dialect. Must be significant enough that impacts social communication and educational or occupational performance. o Sound and syllable repetitions, sound prolongations, interjections, words broken by pauses, pauses in speech, word substitutions to avoid problematic words, and excess physical tension in producing speech Indentifying Core and Secondary Features:  Core features (Primary characteristics): o Repetition: Occurs when a sound, syllable, or word is repeated several times to the point of interrupting the flow of speech. o Prolongation: Sound being held longer than usual o Block: Airflow and articulatory movement completely stop during production of a sound.  Secondary Features (Secondary characteristics): Result from excessive mental and physical efforts to promote fluent speech and to disrupt disfluent speech. o Eye blinks, lip tremors, head jerks, and speaking behaviors such as fillers, pauses, and word changes. Prevalence and Incidence:  Incidence rate of about 1 in 100 persons  Prevalence rate of about 5 in 100 persons  Thus, although about 5% of people have stuttered sometime in their lives, only about 1% have a fluency disorder at the present time.