Choral reading with filtered speech: effect on stuttering

This study investigated use of choral reading with filtered components of speech and whispered speech on the frequency of stuttering. Three passages read by a normal adult male were lowpass filtered with kneepoint frequencies at 100 Hz (approximate glottal source), 500 Hz (source and first formant), and 1 kHz (source and the first two formants). Along with a whispered passage, a normal passage, and a control condition, these stimuli were used in a repeated-measures design with 12 adult stutterers as they read passages while listening to one of the stimuli. Frequencies of stuttering in each condition were analyzed. The choral speech, the 500-Hz, the 1-kHz, and the whispered speech conditions all decreased the frequency of stuttering while the 100-Hz stimuli did not. It is suggested that articulatory events, chiefly the encoded speech output from the vocal tract, create effective cues and may induce fluent speech in people who stutter.