Time-interval measurement in stuttering: can it make the transition from research to practice?

Abstract

This paper explores the importance of measurement in the management of stuttering, and suggests that time-interval measurement may be a clinically useful tool for speech-language pathologists in working with children and adults who stutter. Four experienced speech-language pathologists (Expert raters) and four speech pathology students (Novice raters) used both time-interval measurement (TIM) procedures and percent syllable stuttered (PSS) measurement procedures to rate three 5-minute spontaneous speech samples for a child, adolescent and adult who stuttered. Intrarater reliability for both Expert and Novice raters was acceptable for both measures. As expected from previous findings in the literature for PSS, inter-rater reliability was acceptable for Expert raters, but not for Novice raters. However, for TIM, inter-rater reliability was acceptable for both Expert and Novice raters, which suggests that TIM may provide a useful addition to the measurement tools used by both experienced and inexperienced speech-language pathologists.