Exploring the Speech Disfluencies in Bilingual Cantonese English Speaking School-Age Children

Abstract

<p>Stuttering, characterized by disruptions in speech fluency, typically emerges between ages 2 and 5 when children start forming sentences. A commonly used method for identifying stuttering is currently based on speech disfluency criteria (>3% stuttering-like disfluencies, SLDs) developed for monolingual English-speaking children. However, research suggests that applying these criteria to bilingual children in Western language contexts may result in false positive stuttering diagnoses. The suitability of these criteria for children speaking languages typologically distinct from English remains uncertain.</p><p>This preliminary study investigates speech disfluencies in bilingual children who speak Cantonese (a syllable-timed language) and English (a stress-timed language), considering language dominance, proficiency, and speaking tasks. Forty-five typically fluent school-age children and five children who stutter, all Cantonese-English bilinguals, were recruited for the study, and their speech samples were collected across various speaking tasks (i.e., structured conversation, storytelling, and story retelling) in both Cantonese and English (Data collection is still in progress). </p><p>Speech samples from 23 typically fluent children were analyzed at this stage using the Computerized Language Analysis program to assess participants' frequency and types of speech disfluencies. The results indicated a higher occurrence of SLDs and typical disfluencies (TD) in English compared to Cantonese. Remarkably, 9–60% of children exceeded the 3% SLD criterion across various tasks and languages. Notably, speaking tasks had no significant impact on these findings. However, language dominance or proficiency (but not MLU) emerged as significant predictors for percentage of SLDs (<em>p </em>< .001) and TDs (p < .05).</p><p>These findings emphasize the need to refine the diagnostic criteria for this population and highlight the importance of considering language dominance and proficiency when assessing speech fluency in bilingual children.</p>