Action identification, fluency disorders, and anxiety

Stuttering treatments aim to effectively decrease stuttering behaviors and the negative emotions related to speaking. A typical approach in treatments with dysfluent individuals is to focus on a particular aspect of speech while speaking. This is consistent with the optimality hypothesis of action identification which states that optimal performance on a difficult task requires attention to the basic steps of the action. The contention of this thesis is that this approach serves two purposes: to maintain attention on the task, and to distract from unwanted negative emotions related to the task. This study compared the speech of individuals who stutter on two speaking tasks (easy vs. hard) with two different goals (to persuade listeners vs. to reduce rate). The results indicated that participants had fewer stuttering behaviors when concentrating on reducing speaking rates, as compared to those that did not work on reducing their speaking rate. Further, altering the goal of the task resulted in significant changes in action identification.