Conflicting Evidence for a Motor Timing Theory of Stuttering: Choral Speech Changes the Rhythm of Both Neurotypical and Stuttering Talkers, but in Opposite Directions.

Purpose: Talking in unison with a partner, otherwise known as choral speech, reliably induces fluency in people who stutter (PWS). This effect may arise because choral speech addresses a hypothesized motor timing deficit by giving PWS an external rhythm to align with and scaffold their utterances onto. This study tested this theory by comparing the choral speech rhythm of people who do and do not stutter to assess whether both groups change their rhythm in similar ways when talking chorally.

Method: Twenty adults who stutter and 20 neurotypical controls read a passage on their own and then a second passage chorally with a neurotypical partner. Their speech rhythm was evaluated using Envelope Modulation Spectrum (EMS) analysis to derive peak frequency, a measure of the dominant rate of modulation in the sound envelope, as well as peak amplitude (the amplitude of the peak frequency), across several octave bands associated with different features of speech.

Results: The two groups displayed opposing patterns of rhythmic change during choral reading. People with a stutter increased their EMS peak frequency when they read chorally, while neurotypical talkers' choral speech was characterized by reduced peak frequency compared to solo reading.

Conclusions: Our findings show that the choral speech rhythm of PWS differs from that of neurotypical talkers. This indicates limited support for the hypothesis that choral speech addresses a motor timing deficit by giving PWS a rhythmic cue with which to align.