Interruption in Conversational Dyads,between Mothers and Their Preschool Stuttering and Nonstuttering Children

This study analyzed overlap (or interruption behavior) in conversations between mothers and their stuttering children to determine how overlap relates to fluency. Subjects for the study, which is part of the Genesis of Stuttering Project, were 20 preschool stuttering children and their mothers. Three forms of overlap were examined: simultaneous start, the parent or child as interruptee, and the parent or child as interruptor. Both subjects and control group children demonstrated more disfluency during overlapped utterances than nonoverlapped utterances. Most disfluency and stuttering occurred during overlap rather than immediately precedIng or following it. There were no differences by sex. Mothers of stutterers interrupted their children's dysfluent speech significantly less than did the mothers of nonstuttering children, and there were no differences between the mothers during fluent speech. It is concluded that the data do not support the contention that stuttering/dysfluency evokes overlap or intervuption, but overlap does appear to evoke stuttering/disfluency for both stuttering and nonstuttering children. (Five references) (JDD) *************** ******* ************************************************* Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ************ ***** ****************************************************** Cheryl L. Marsh 469.26th Street Manhattan Beach Calltornla 90266 INTERRUPTION IN CONVERSATIONAL DYADS,BETWEEN MOTHERS AND THEIR PRESCHOOL STUTTERING AND NONSTUTTERING CHILDREN LVS. DEPARTMENT LIC EDUCATION Marsh & Ryan (Mkt, ot Ettocaltortill Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) /mg document haft been reproduced as feceived ttom the peron or orognisItiOn _ onoinlbno .1 Points Olview Of omnionStatedm thiSdOcu merit do not necessarily represent officio! OE RI position or poliCy Background "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL. HAS BEENIIRANTED BY 4. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." Interruption in conversation has long been assumed to cause fluency problems for young developing speakers, especially for children who stutter. Some researchers (Egolf et al, 1972) have suggested that parents are one of the most potent agents in the acquisition and maintenance of stuttering. Others, who have studied the interactional and bidirectional behavior betwe?en child and parent (notably Meyers and Freeman, 1985) have not able to substantiated this view. Interruption, which is a corrvlate of conversation among those of all ages, is most often considered to be a detriment and counterproductive to ongoing interaction. Further, it has been assumed that parents interrupt children more than children interrupt their parents (Lonfirmed by Bedrosian et al, 1988), and that overlap functions primarily in a negative manner, or at least demonstrates parental power and control. "Overlap" is a term "I" prefer to use, since it captures all interruption behavior without assigning "blame". Overlap refers to all instances when two speakers are speaking at the same time. An important consideration in studying overlap is to look at how interruptive a particular overlap is. This may be related to how long it lasts, where in an utterance it occurs, and what the content or intent is, e.g., is it a topic change or is it merely acknowledging the other speaker. 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Overlap may be divided simply into -3 -categories: -(1) "simultaneous start" which is when both speakers start to speak at the same time; (2) "interraptor" which refers to the speaker who starts to.speak after the second person has started; And. (3) "interruptee" which refers to the speaker who already has the floor when the second speaker starts to speak. It was the purpose of this study to compare and contrast interruption/overlap behavior of preschool stutterers and nonstutterers in motherchild dyadic conversations to determine how interruption relates