Honors Theses

Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Dwight Waddell

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a change in the location of the tactile stimulator would alter the instances of stuttering. Method Each subject was required to read a randomly assigned 300-syllable passage in each of the five assigned speaking conditions, which includes the control, fingers, chest, wrist, and foot. Results The stuttering count for each condition was analyzed by two trained research assistants. The median for the control was 44 syllables, the fingers were 41 syllables, the chest was 35 syllables, the wrist was 44 syllables, and the foot was 23 syllables. An RM-ANOVA was performed after data transformation, and revealed no clear distinction between any of the speaking conditions, however, an overall reduction in the distribution of instances of stuttering between the control and foot of nearly 50%. Conclusions The null hypothesis was accepted based on the results, however, the results were not in line with the data from previous publications. The data suggested that the foot was a promising location in altering the fluency in those who stutter. Investigating protocol would be beneficial towards future research.

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