Duration of Stuttered Syllables Measured by “Computerized Scoring of the Stuttering Severity (CSSS)” and “Pratt”

Objectives: This investigation aimed to compare the performance of two software packages, namely “Computerized Scoring of the Stuttering Severity (CSSS)” and “Praat,” in calculating the mean duration of stuttered syllables. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 35 eligible stuttering subjects (26 male and 9 female), aged between 18 and 42 (m=26.23±6.02) were selected via the non-probability sampling method to enter the study. Spontaneous speech samples of subjects with stuttering were recorded with the help of a video camera. Two separate tasks were used to calculate the Mean Duration of the Three Longest Stuttering Events (MDTLSE) by applying the second version of the CSSS software and the 5.3.78 version of the Praat software. In the first task, MDTLSE was measured 10 times for a subject with mild stuttering and a subject with severe stuttering. In the second task, MDTLSE was measured just one time for each stuttering participant, and comparison was performed by paired t-test using the SPSS Version 22.0 computer software. Results: In the first task, in which Praat and CSSS-2 were used for the calculation of MDTLSE (10 times), the minimum and maximum obtained values were found to differ by 0.007 seconds (7 milliseconds) and 0.2 seconds (200 milliseconds), respectively. In the second task, in which MDTLSE was calculated with the software CSSS-2 and Praat, the differences were 2.34±2.17 and 3.02±2.98, respectively, that were found to be statistically significant (P=0.025). Discussion: Higher reliability and replicability of duration values calculated by Praat software indicates that this software can be applied for more precise determination of duration of stuttered syllables.