Audiovocal integration in adults who stutter

Background: Altered auditory feedback can facilitate speech fluency in adults who stutter. However, other findings suggest that adults who stutter show anomalies in 'audiovocal integration', such as longer phonation reaction times to auditory stimuli and less effective pitch tracking. Aims: To study audiovocal integration in adults who stutter using the pitch-shift paradigm. Methods & Procedures: Fourteen adult stuttering participants and 16 normally fluent adults produced the vowel /a/while monitoring their own voice through earphones. Unanticipated pitch-shifts were applied in the upward or downward direction for 500 ms. Outcomes & Results: Short latency pitch-shift responses (or pitch-shift responses) were elicited in all participants. In stuttering participants, vocal response onset latency was significantly delayed and amplitude tended to be reduced. Conclusions & Implications: Atypical audiovocal responses could be associated with stuttering. It is not clear how audiovocal integration influences stuttering, but could signal inadequate activation of internal models.