SLP Fluency and Its Disorders 2 ā Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which neuroimaging finding is most consistently associated with adults who stutter?
- Reduced activation in Broca's area during fluent speech
- Overactivation of right hemisphere motor areas during speech
- Reduced white matter integrity in the arcuate fasciculus (Correct answer)
- Hyperactivation of the cerebellum at rest
Correct answer: Reduced white matter integrity in the arcuate fasciculus
DTI studies consistently show reduced white matter integrity in the left arcuate fasciculus in people who stutter, disrupting sensorimotor integration for speech.
Question 2: A child who repeats whole words and phrases but shows no tension or avoidance is most likely exhibiting:
- Cluttering
- Normal disfluency (Correct answer)
- Covert stuttering
- Neurogenic stuttering
Correct answer: Normal disfluency
Whole-word and phrase repetitions without tension, struggle, or avoidance are characteristic of normal developmental disfluency in young children.
Question 3: The Van Riper technique of 'cancellation' involves:
- Stopping mid-stutter, pausing, and reattempting the word with controlled stuttering (Correct answer)
- Using airflow to cancel the moment of stuttering before it occurs
- Canceling therapy sessions when the client is highly anxious
- Replacing stuttered words with synonyms
Correct answer: Stopping mid-stutter, pausing, and reattempting the word with controlled stuttering
Cancellation involves stopping after a stuttered word, pausing, and then deliberately stuttering through the word again in a more controlled manner.
Question 4: Which factor most strongly predicts NATURAL RECOVERY from childhood stuttering?
- Early age of onset before 2.5 years
- Female sex of the child (Correct answer)
- Presence of a family history of persistent stuttering
- High frequency of part-word repetitions
Correct answer: Female sex of the child
Female sex is one of the strongest predictors of natural recovery, as girls recover spontaneously at significantly higher rates than boys.
Question 5: In the Lidcombe Program, what is the primary role of the parent?
- Administering pharmacological agents before conversation practice
- Providing structured verbal contingencies for stuttered and fluent speech at home (Correct answer)
- Modeling slow speech rate throughout all daily interactions
- Conducting formal stuttering counts using digital recording software
Correct answer: Providing structured verbal contingencies for stuttered and fluent speech at home
The Lidcombe Program trains parents to deliver verbal contingenciesāpraise for stutter-free speech and acknowledgment of stuttersāduring daily structured conversations.
Question 6: A client reports stuttering more on words starting with /p/, /b/, and /t/. This pattern is best explained by:
- Increased aerodynamic resistance of stop consonants (Correct answer)
- Learned avoidance generalized to plosive sounds
- Phonological awareness deficits for stop phonemes
- Laryngeal dysfunction specific to voiced stops
Correct answer: Increased aerodynamic resistance of stop consonants
Stops require a complete oral closure and sudden pressure release, creating higher aerodynamic demands that can trigger or exacerbate stuttering moments.
Question 7: Which best describes the loci of stuttering relative to linguistic boundaries?
- Stuttering occurs most frequently at the ends of phrases and sentences
- Stuttering clusters at the beginning of utterances and on grammatically important words (Correct answer)
- Stuttering is evenly distributed across all syllable positions within words
- Stuttering is most common on function words like 'the' and 'and'
Correct answer: Stuttering clusters at the beginning of utterances and on grammatically important words
Research shows stuttering occurs most often at utterance-initial positions and on content words, consistent with increased linguistic planning demands at those points.
SLP Fluency and Its Disorders 2
Which neuroimaging finding is most consistently associated with adults who stutter?