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Purpose

In this study, the authors determined whether basic patterns of muscle activation for speech were similar in preschool children who stutter and in their fluent peers.

Method

Right and left lower lip muscle activity were recorded during conversational speech and sentence repetition in 64 preschool children diagnosed as stuttering (CWS) and in 40 children who do not stutter (CWNS). Measures of electromyography (EMG) amplitude, right–left asymmetry, and bilateral coordination were computed for fluent speech. The potential presence of tremor-like oscillations during disfluencies of CWS was assessed, and EMG amplitudes of fluent and disfluent speech were compared in CWS.

Results

Across both speaking tasks, lip muscle activation was similar in CWS and CWNS in overall amplitude, bilateral synchrony, and degree of right–left asymmetry. EMG amplitude was reduced during disfluent compared with fluent …