A comparative study of speech disfluencies in nonstuttering black and white college athletes

Speech samples elicited from nonstuttering black subjects and from nonstuttering white subjects were compared for degree and nature of disfluencies. Ninety-two male college athletes were screened in the areas of articulation, voice, fluency, and hearing. A 100-word conversational speech sample and a 200-word reading sample were elicited from subjects who passed the screening (28 black athletes and 29 white athletes). Both the spontaneous speech samples and the reading samples were rated for disfluency by three clinically certified speech-language pathologists. The black subjects exhibited significantly more total disfluencies in reading than did the white subjects; in terms of disfluency differences by type, the black subjects displayed significantly more word and phrase repititions. No significant differences were found between the subject groups for total disfluencies in conversation, although the white subjects did display significantly more hesitations. Grammatically, both subject groups were most disfluent on pronouns, nouns, adverbs, verbs, and adjectives, consistent with research findings on the loci of speech disfluencies.