Influence of Stuttering Therapy on Clinicians' Disfluencies: Effect of Client Modeling

To investigate whether student clinicians working with stutterers subsequently produce more disfluencies than those providing therapy to clients with other speech & language disorders, graduate students in a 6-week summer camp were divided into two groups: group 1 (N = 8) treated stutterers, group 2 (N = 9) treated clients with other communication disorders. Pre- & posttreatment recordings of all Ss' speech (spontaneous speaking & oral reading) were analyzed to determine disfluency types. Findings revealed that group 1 clinicians decreased their total disfluencies between pre- & posttreatment recordings of spontaneous speaking (vs a smaller decrease for group 2), but increased part-word repetitions & sound prolongations. The possibilities of incidental learning, reverse modeling, & overidentification are discussed. 2 Tables, 1 Figure. Modified HA