Effect of an Auditory Temporal Training Program on Speech Fluency of Children with Developmental Stuttering

The present study aims to investigate the effect of a temporal processing-based auditory training program on alleviating stuttering severity in children diagnosed with auditory temporal processing disorders.

Thirty-one children with stuttering diagnosed with auditory temporal processing disorders participated in this study (intervention group: 17 participants between seven to 12 years old; control group: 14 participants between eight to 12 years old). The auditory temporal processing test and Stuttering Severity Instrument-3 (SSI-3) were examined before/after 12 sessions (nearly 540 minutes) of training and three months following the conclusion of the intervention.

According to the results, auditory temporal processing improved significantly in the intervention group after temporal processing-based auditory training. Besides, the differences between the intervention and control groups were significant (P<0.05). The improvement of auditory temporal processing skills remained stable in the post-training evaluation after three months (P>0.05). Although the SSI-3 score was somewhat improved in the intervention group, no significant difference was found between the two groups (P=0.984).

The findings revealed that auditory temporal processing training acted as a complementary therapy alleviating the stuttering severity of children who stutter with auditory temporal processing disorders to some extent.