Speaking rate, conversational speech acts, interruption, and linguistic complexity of 20 pre-school stuttering and non-stuttering children and their mothers.

This is the second in a series of reports concerning stuttering pre-school children enrolled in a longitudinal study; the first was Ryan (1992). Conversational samples of 20 stuttering and 20 non-stuttering pre-school children and their mothers were analysed for speaking rate, conversational speech acts, interruption, and linguistic complexity. Between-group analyses revealed few differences between either the two children or two mother groups. Within-group analyses indicated differences that involved conversational speech acts and linguistic complexity. Most stuttering occurred on statements (M = 32.3% stuttered) and questions (M = 20.9% stuttered). Stuttered and disfluent sentences had higher Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) (Lee, 1974) scores (M = 10.9, 12.9, respectively) than fluent sentences (M = 7.6). Multiple correlation analyses indicated that speaking rate of mothers (0.561) and normal disfluency of children (0.396) were major predictor variables.

Programmed stuttering treatment for children: comparison of two establishment programs through transfer, maintenance, and follow-up.

Two different Establishment programs, Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF) and Gradual increase in Length and Complexity of Utterance (GILCU), for improving the fluency of school-age children who stutter, were compared. The programs were carried out by 12 clinicians under supervision with 24 clients (12 elementary and 12 junior/senior high school) in the schools. Both programs produced important improvement in fluency in 23/24 (96%) of the children in a reasonable time period (7.9 hours). Generally, the two programs were similar in performance. The only difference (between GILCU and DAF) was that the GILCU program provided initially for better generalization of fluency. Transfer and Maintenance programs (10.4 hours) demonstrated that the children from the two Establishment programs performed in a similar manner and that the Transfer and Maintenance Programs were helpful. In a total of 18.3 hours of establishment, transfer, and maintenance treatment, 11 subjects, who completed the programs, reduced their stuttering from 7.9 SW/M to .8 SW/M at a 14-month follow-up showing that the children had maintained their fluency. Clinicians' performances contributed to the effectiveness and efficiency of the programs.

Articulation, language, rate, and fluency characteristics of stuttering and nonstuttering preschool children.

Articulation (Arizona Articulation Proficiency Scale), language (TOLD, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), and fluency (Fluency Interview) tests were given to 20 stuttering and 20 nonstuttering male and female preschool children to examine potential performance differences between the two groups. Speaking rate was also measured. There were several significant but minor differences between the two groups. The stuttering children scored lower on seven out of eight language measures than the nonstuttering children and slightly lower than the average score for their age group when compared with the tests' normative samples. Girls demonstrated higher language scores and faster speaking rates. There were no differences between the stuttering and nonstuttering groups on articulation proficiency, although 25% of the stuttering group (all boys) later required articulation treatment. There were few statistically significant correlations between measures of stuttering rate, speaking rate, and language performances within each of the two groups of children, although there were consistent, low-to-moderate negative correlations between stuttering rate and language measures and low positive correlations between speaking rate and language measures. A stepwise regression analysis suggested that selected variables of language proficiency combined with speaking rate were at best moderately predictive (R = .52) of stuttering behavior for the total group of children.

When to stop resuscitation--the significance of cuff blood pressure.

Fifteen consecutive patients who had been resuscitated from cardiac arrest and transferred immediately to an Intensive Care Unit were studied. Measurements of intraarterial pressure, cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance demonstrate that 'cuff' blood pressure may not always be related to intraarterial pressure or cardiac output and cannot be used for diagnostic, therapeutic, or prognostic purposes. Following resuscitation, a palpable pulse was present in each of these patients, but did not correlate with adequacy of cardiac output. Too often we hear during a cardiac arrest the question 'Does the patient have an output?', when we should really be asking 'Does the patient have a pulse?'. The palpation of a pulse is a simple and important indication of spontaneous cardiac activity. However cardiac output must be measured and it's adequacy cannot be inferred from this basic clinical measurement.