INCREMENTAL SENTENCE PRODUCTION IN ADULTS WHO STUTTER: EYE TRACKING WHILE SPEAKING

Abstract

Previous research investigated whether adults who stutter are affected by the same lexical retrieval factors as typically fluent adults. The findings of these studies indicate that the nature of this impact may (Newman & Ratner, 2007) or may not (Hennessey, Nang, & Beilby, 2008) differ between groups. The current study investigates how lexical retrieval unfolds when words are embedded in sentences across these populations. This work used an eye tracking while speaking paradigm during an “A and B are above C” sentence task. Codability and frequency of objects “A” and “B” were manipulated. Adults who stutter and typically fluent adults showed longer gaze duration with increased B difficulty. Total looking times indicated that effects of pre-planning varied with difficulty of A only in typically fluent adults. This suggests that word-level production interacts with sentence-level production. Pre-planning strategies may be less flexible among adults who do stutter than typically fluent adults.