[Partial acoustic agnosia as a cause of stammering. Possibilities and limits of diagnostic testing methods]

An essential precondition for normal speech development is an intact peripheral and central hearing capacity. Disturbances of auditory perception can be the cause of speech defects. There are many methods to examine sound discriminating capacity. Most of them are statistically not verified or standardized. We developed a testing method which consists of 44 figured word pairs. We suggest how to differentiate between children with impaired auditory perception from children without this disturbance. Visual perception and visuomotor function were examined by the Marianne Frostig Developmental Test of VIsual Perception and the Bender-Gestalt-Test (Göttinger Form-reproduktions-Test). We found disturbances all the more the auditory perception was impaired. We investigated handedness and cerebral dominance by the Hand-Dominanz-Test (Steingrüber, Lienert). Righthandedness was most clearly pronounced in the control group (normal speaking children), less so in stammerers without weakness in sound discrimination and weakest in stammerers with this latter defect.