Identifier

etd-04112007-230312

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if reduced rate techniques have an effect on speech motor coordination of an adolescent. A literature review revealed that a reduced rate technique consistently promoted more fluent speech; however, the cause of that increase in fluency is not known. This study proposed three specific questions to determine if there was a shortening of the /s/ phoneme in clustered contexts when compared to singletons, if reducing the rate would cause the adolescent to produce more adult-like shortening patterns, and if the reduced rate technique caused a decrease in stuttering events. One eleven year old participated in this study by repeating previously recorded sentences each containing the /s/ phoneme in either cluster or singleton context. The single subject design utilized an ABA treatment method. Results indicated the reduced rate did have an affect on the length of the /s/ phoneme during the treatment phase; however, the treatment induced a lengthening of /s/ in SC contexts only. Since the length of /s/ in SC contexts increased and the length of /s/ in SV contexts remained the same, SC and SV /s/ durations were similar during phase B. This is not the adult-like shortening behavior we would expect. When the treatment method was removed during phase A2, the participant shortened /s/ in clusters in an adult-like manner. The number of stuttering events decreased dramatically with the reduced rate technique: 15 events during phase A1, 5 in B, and 3 in A2.

Date

2007

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Paul Hoffman

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.1500

Download

Share

COinS