By hearing their own voices

When 11-year-old
John (not his real
name) walked into Dr.
Beverly Timmon’s
office, donned a set of
headphones connected
to a modified tape
recorder and spoke
perfectly clearly into a
microphone, his
mother burst into tears.
This was the first time
she had ever heard him
utter a word without
stuttering.

The boy was participating
in a research program
conducted by Dr Beverly A.
Timmons an educational
psychologist at the
University of Victoma. She
has been working with
stuttering and non-stuttering
people for 12 years trying to
determine the effects of
delayed auditory feedback

on speech. Timmons first
came to UVic in 1969.

Delayed auditory feed-
back is produced by
modifying a tape recorder.
The eraser head is replaced
with a playback head. When
a person speaks in the
microphone, he hears his
own voice coming back
through attached  head-
phones, but delayed a
fraction of a second.

With = delayed
feedback, stutterers relax
and react with improved
fluency. Timmons says that
the more severe the stut-
tering, the more likely it 1s
that a specific delay can be
found to reduce speech
repetitions. Articulation
problems are somewhat
remedied by delayed
fuditory feedback.

“] don't think delayed
auditory feedback 1s as
successful with muld = stut-

auditory

north shore

iInews

terers as it is with severe
stutterers,” Timmons says.
“Once they put the head-

phones on, some _ severe
stutterers stop = stuttering
immediately.”

Normally articulate, fluent
people react strongly to
delay auditory feedback,
either with a type of stutter
or with slowed = speech,
depending upon the length
of the delay used. Timmons
says the most violent
reaction she ever got was
from a man who just couldn't
speak. He threw the
headphones at her in
exasperation

Timmons, currently) on
sabbatical, is working on
individual responses to

delayed auditory feedback
She 1s using six different
delay times and recording
the reactions of adults to
those delays. Her current
study might be described as

Success at last for stutterers

the “fine tuning” of delay
auditory feedback.

“I do the background
research and make the
parameters of the equipment
known,” she said.

The actual cause of
stuttering and why delayed
auditory feedback has a
positive effect on it is not
known, although there are
studies underway to. in-
vestigate several theories.

Timmons says one
possibility is that a stutterer
has a natural built-in delayed
auditory feedback system
and that the conduction of
sound to his cars from his
larynx (vocal chords) is
somchow delayed

“Itas beheved that there 1s
a physiological pre
disposition to stutter,”
Timmons says “Stutterers
may have discrepant sound
systems ~

A great

weekend

SUNBATHING WAS
the order of the day
on Saturday as
temperatures rose
high. This group at
Cates Park appear
very content in the
sunshine, although
clouds and _ rain
moved in to go along
with the Monday
blahs. (Terry Peters
photo)

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