social-cognitive processes

Stutterers don’t stutter when speaking alone, or to babies or pets. Recent work from our lab suggests that this “talk-alone effect” in adults is dependent upon the perception of a listener, i.e., whether the speaker perceives that a listener will hear them. However, years of living with stuttering and experiencing negative listener reactions may play a role in why stuttering doesn’t occur during private speech. It is therefore critical to study private speech in young children who stutter who haven’t experienced years of negative listener reactions. Haley Warner (doctoral student) is currently pursuing this subject.

While there is obviously a strong social-cognitive component to stuttering, it is unclear what makes some interactions or situations more difficult than others for stutterers. Courtney Margulis (doctoral student) is currently studying the social perceptions of stutterers to begin to unravel why some situations are more difficult than others for stutterers.