Linguistic Characteristics of the Stuttered Word in a Bilingual Spanish-English Speaking Child

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to increase our understanding of the stuttering in bilingual children. Specifically, the linguistic features of the stuttered word in the spontaneous speech of a bilingual Spanish-English child (chronological age 2;7) were examined and compared to what is observed in monolingual Spanish and English speaking children who stutter. Digital video recordings of the participant's connected speech in both languages were collected. These samples included conversations with an English speaking clinician, bilingual Spanish-English speaking clinician, mother, and father while playing with toys. Results revealed both similarities and differences compared to monolingual English and Spanish speaking individuals who stutter. Differences were noted in word length, initial phoneme, grammatical clause, and position in clause. These differences may be due to interaction effects among linguistic factors as well as bilingual effects.