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Early childhood speech disfluency – a case report

Jolanta Dunaj, Zbigniew Tarkowski

Affiliacja i adres do korespondencji
PSYCHIATR. PSYCHOL. KLIN. 2011, 11 (1), p. 55-58
Streszczenie

The aim of this work is presentation of the basic information concerning speech disfluency among young children, as well as a review of the three-year longitudinal research. A young boy was examined and the research was conducted by his mother (J.D.), who was advised and assisted by the supervisor (Z.T.). Although speech disfluency starts and develops mainly at preschool age, literature on the subject is relatively meagre and case studies are rarely presented. According to the ICD-10 diagnostic criteria, stuttering is treated as a behaviour and emotion disorder which starts in the childhood. It may be regarded as a psychosomatic disorder, whose structure consists of linguistic (e.g. speech disfluency), biological (e.g. increased muscle tension), psychological (e.g. fear of speaking) and social (e.g. isolation) factors, as well as relations between them. Such systemic and structural presentation of this disorder was used to describe the child examined. The following stages of his development were distinguished: I – disfluency which is basically fluent (1.0-2.5), II – natural speech disfluency (2.6-3.3), III – stuttering (3.4-3.9), IV – mainly semantic disfluency (3.1-4.1), V – deciding whether the disfluency develops into a normal or a pathological one (≥4.11). The following factors can be distinguished in the aetiology of this disorder: predisposing (family disposition, little articulatory activity, crossed lateralization), triggering (separation, competition, change of environment) and establishing (communicational stress, habit).

Słowa kluczowe
normal speech disfluency, stuttering, early childhood, case study, differential diagnosis, prognosis