Acoustic analysis of speech of children who stutter

Abstract Purpose: Acoustic analysis in children who stutter (CWS) helps objectively measure disfluencies such as repetitions, prolongations, and blocks. Few studies related to acoustic analysis in the Indian context, particularly about the Kannada language, exist. Hence, the present study was planned to conduct an acoustic analysis of the speech of CWS by identifying specific acoustic parameters. Materials and Methods: A cohort of children diagnosed with stuttering, aged between 7 and 10 years, was compared with age-matched children with no stutter (CWNS) on temporal parameters. Speech samples of CWS and CWNS were collected in conversation and sentence formulation tasks, which consisted of 60 words beginning with/k/ in the phonetic context/a/. All the target words were analyzed for specific temporal measures, including burst duration (BD), voice onset time (VOT), vowel duration (VD), and word duration (WD), using PRAAT software. Results: A Mann–Whitney U test was performed, and significant differences were observed in all parameters except BD. Notably, these children exhibited increased WD, BD, VD, and shorter VOT compared to the CWNS group, suggesting disruptions in the coordination of speech motor control. Conclusion: The timing mechanisms related to the speech motor system have been targeted as a potential source of deficits underlying stuttering. It is also found that speech production in CWS exhibits increased variability, particularly in aspects such as the temporal dynamics of subglottal air pressure, articulatory movements, utterance length, VD, and VOT.