The Effect of Word Meaning on Speech DysFluency in Adults with Developmental Stuttering

Objectives: stuttering is one of the most prevalent speech and language disorders. symptomology ofstuttering has been surveyed from different aspects such as biological, developmental, environmental,emotional, learning and linguistic. previous researches in english-speaking people have suggested thatsome linguistic features such as word meanings may play a role in the frequency of speech non-fluency inpeople who stutter. the aim of this study was to determine the effect of word meanings on the frequencyof dysfluency in persian-speaking adults with developmental stuttering.method: this cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study was performed on 14 adults who stuttered. theiraverage age was 25 years. the frequency of non-fluency instances was evaluated upon reading two listscontaining 60 words and 60 non-words. the words were selected on the basis of common persian syllablestructures. ‘kolmogoro-smirnov one sample test’ and paired t-test was used to analyze data; thesignificance level was set at p < 0.05.results: there was a significant difference between the dysfluency in word and non-word lists (p < 0.05).conclusion: the findings of this study indicate a significant increase in the frequency of dysfluency onnon-words than on real words. it seems that the phonological encoding process of non-word reading ismuch more complex than for word reading, because, in non-word reading, the component of semanticcontent retrieval (word meaning) is missing when compared to word reading.