Haskins Publications

Number	856
Year	1991
Drawer	16
Entry Date	07/20/1998
Authors	Alfonso, Peter J.
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Publication	Speech Motor Control and Stuttering, edited by Peters, Hulstijn, and Starkweather. Elsevier Science Publishers, B.V., pp. 79-100.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0856.pdf
Abstract	The assigned task is to demonstrate how the concepts underlying task-dynamic modeling can improve our understanding of speech motor organization in those who stutter. The discussion focuses on the principles underlying, and the results of experiments that have centered upon, certain organizational principles of skill motor behavior. Based on the results of experiments of this type, the following assumptions are drawn: (1) the stutterers’ speech motor system exhibits generalized spatio-temporal dysfunction and (2) the dysfunction occurs at a level of motor control that is generally responsible for spatio-temporal organization of all skilled motor activities. This implies that the disorder of stuttering is associated with, in addition to the linguistic factors that are encoded in speech movements and the behavioral influences which might mediate them, irregularities at a rudimentary and pre-linguistic level of motor control. An example of how these assumptions can be tested by task-dynamic modeling is given.
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