Relationship between speech rate and speech disruption in cluttering.

PURPOSE To correlate speech rate and speech disruptions in individuals who clutter, and to compare with individuals who do not clutter. METHODS Participants were 14 individuals with ages between 8 and 40 years and 11 months, of both genders, divided into two groups paired by age and gender. GI was composed by seven individuals who clutter, and GII by seven individuals who do not clutter. The Speech Fluency Assessment Protocol was used to gather and analyze the speech samples, considering the frequency of speech disruptions and the speech rate. RESULTS Data indicated that the greater the rate of syllables and words per minute, the greater the number of speech disruptions, both for individuals who do and do not clutter. In the comparison between groups, there was correlation both for syllables and words per minute only in the group of individuals who not clutter. CONCLUSION The individuals who clutter in this study presented a higher speech rate and frequency of common disfluencies. In both analyzed groups there was a tendency to greater frequency of common disfluencies as speech rate increased. However, in the comparative analysis between individuals who do and do not clutter, the correlation was significant only in the group of individuals who do not clutter.