PurposePhonological skills have been associated with developmental stuttering. The current study aimed to determine whether the neural processes underlying phonology, specifically for nonword rhyming, differentiated stuttering persistence and recovery.MethodTwenty-six children who stutter (CWS) and 18 children who do not stutter, aged 5 years, completed an auditory nonword rhyming task. Event-related brain potentials were elicited by prime, rhyming, and nonrhyming targets. CWS were followed longitudinally to determine eventual persistence (n= 14) or recovery (n= 12). This is a retrospective analysis of data acquired when all CWS presented as stuttering.ResultsCWS who eventually recovered and children who do not stutter exhibited the expected rhyme effect, with larger event-related brain potential amplitudes elicited by nonrhyme targets compared to rhyme targets. In contrast, CWS who eventually persisted exhibited a reverse rhyme effect, with larger responses to rhyme than nonrhyme targets.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that CWS who eventually persisted are not receiving the same benefit of phonological priming as CWS who eventually recovered for complex nonword rhyming tasks. These results indicate divergent patterns of phonological processing in young CWS who eventually persisted, especially for difficult tasks with limited semantic context, and suggest that the age of 5 years may be an important developmental period for phonology in CWS.Supplemental Materialhttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12682874

中文翻译：

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非单词韵律背后的神经过程区分最终口吃的持续性和恢复

目的语音技能与发展性口吃有关。目前的研究旨在确定音韵学基础的神经过程，特别是非单词押韵、差异化口吃持续性和恢复的神经过程。方法26 名口吃儿童 (CWS) 和 18 名不口吃的 5 岁儿童完成了听觉非单词押韵任务。与事件相关的大脑电位是由主要目标、押韵目标和非押韵目标引发的。纵向跟踪 CWS 以确定最终的持久性（n= 14) 或恢复 (n= 12）。这是对所有 CWS 表现为口吃时获得的数据的回顾性分析。结果最终康复的 CWS 和不口吃的儿童表现出预期的韵律效应，与韵律目标相比，非韵律目标引发的事件相关大脑电位振幅更大。相比之下，最终坚持下来的 CWS 表现出反向押韵效应，对押韵目标的反应比对非押韵目标的反应更大。结论这些发现表明，最终坚持下来的 CWS 并没有像最终从复杂的非单词押韵任务中恢复过来的 CWS 那样获得语音启动的好处。这些结果表明，最终坚持下来的年轻 CWS 的语音处理模式存在差异，特别是对于语义上下文有限的困难任务，并表明 5 岁可能是 CWS 语音学的重要发展时期。补充材料https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12682874