Clinical trial NCT04082104: Assessment of Stuttering Severity in Adults and Adolescences in Conversational and Narrative Contexts
Official title: Assessment of Stuttering Severity in Adults and Adolescences in Conversational and Narrative Contexts
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Conditions: Stuttering
Lead sponsor: Assiut University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2019-09-09
Enrollment: 50
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 11
Maximum age (years): 50
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: CASE_ONLY
Time perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Stuttering adults and adolescences will be referred from the outpatient clinic of Phoniatric Unit at Assiut University Hospital

Brief summary: The aim of this study is to assess stuttering severity in both narration and conversation in adults and adolescences in order to determine which situation is more stressful so that more reliable and accurate measures for diagnosis can be done. Also this study will help in determining the best line of management of stuttering.

Detailed description: Stuttering is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks.

In the world, approximately 1% of the adult population suffer from stuttering. Stuttering has severe impact on the overall quality of the person's life such as anxiety, stress, shame, low self-esteem and negative affectivity .It also affects his educational attainment, his attractiveness and work life as he avoids employment.

Stuttering varies in severity, frequency and duration from situation to situation. So its dynamics are best understood within discourse contexts that involve interactions with other people. Clinicians typically rely on spontaneous conversational samples for analyzing speech disfluencies. They have good validity, but the use of a more structured form of speech may allow for more efficient, reliable elicitation of stuttering related behaviours and better understanding of the nature of stuttering.

Narration offers a more structured context than conversation because storytellers must weave together information about the characters, the circumstances and actions. Also, narration often contains more complex language than conversation and put the whole responsibility on the speaker for planning and conveying the information to the listener, compared to conversation where two or more speakers co-construct the stream of topics and comments. Thus, narration places more linguistic, cognitive and communicative demands on speakers than does conversation.

A research was done on six adult participants and showed that some of them stuttered more during conversation and others stuttered more during narration.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

1. Age :11-50
2. Gender : both sex will be included in the study
3. IQ \>85
4. No previous therapy

Exclusion Criteria:

* 1. Presence of any other speech, language, physical or neuropsychatric disorders.

Primary outcomes:
measure: measuring the stuttering severity index in narrative and conversational contexts by using Stuttering Severity Instrument version 3 (scale ranges from very mild to very severe)
timeFrame: baseline
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Comparison between the stuttering severity indices in narrative and conversational contexts (comparing the results of the primary outcome) by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
timeFrame: baseline
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Assiut
country: Egypt
facility: Assiut University Hospital
Study officials:
References:
citation: Byrd CT, Logan KJ, Gillam RB. Speech disfluency in school-age children's conversational and narrative discourse. Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2012 Apr;43(2):153-63. doi: 10.1044/0161-1461(2011/10-0068). Epub 2012 Jan 23.
citation: Constantino CD, Leslie P, Quesal RW, Yaruss JS. A preliminary investigation of daily variability of stuttering in adults. J Commun Disord. 2016 Mar-Apr;60:39-50. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2016.02.001. Epub 2016 Feb 23.