The disfluent speech of a Spanish–English bilingual child who stutters

Abstract

This study provides a detailed description of the disfluent speech behaviours produced by a 6;1-year-old bilingual Spanish–English speaking female with confirmed stuttering. Eight language samples across different contexts (narratives and conversations) with the clinician in English and Spanish and the parent in Spanish were analysed. Language samples were transcribed in the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts programme and coded for types of disfluencies based on guidelines for monolingual English speakers. Similarities and differences were noted in speech disfluencies produced in English as compared Spanish. Overall, the participant was more disfluent in English across both her narrative and her conversational output. However, she produced more stuttering-like disfluencies in her Spanish narrative sample than her English narrative sample. Conversely, she produced more nonstuttering-like disfluencies in her English than her Spanish narrative sample. These findings suggest stuttering specific as well as language specific contributors to the fluency breakdowns that characterize the speech output of a bilingual Spanish English child who stutters.

• Child speech
• Spanish–English bilingual
• stuttering

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the undergraduate research assistant on this project, Nancy Rodriguez and Beverly Moreno for their assistance with data transcription and coding for this project. We would also like to thank Scott and White Hospital for allowing this project to take place at their institution.

Notes

*Requests for access to the experimental version of the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment may be made directly to the first author of the test via email to Dr. Elizabeth Pena [email protected].