Original Research Article
Year: 2020 | Month: July | Volume: 10 | Issue: 7 | Pages: 139-143
Identifying Pattern of Disfluencies in School Going Tamil and English Medium Children
Pachaiappan. C1, Sowmiya. G2, Cherkuri Ramya Sri3
1Assistant Professor, Audiologist and Speech Language Pathologist, 2Undergraduate Student, 3Clinical Supervisor,
Madras ENT Research Foundation- Institute of Speech and Hearing (P) Ltd, South Canal Bank Road, Mandaivellipakkam, Chennai-28
Corresponding Author: Pachaiappan. C
ABSTRACT
Fluency is that the effortless production of long continuous utterances at a rapid rate. Disfluency or non-fluency suggest disruptions within the timing and flow of non-stuttered speech like interjections and phrase repetitions that are often perceived as being a part of the traditional interruptions of speech.
Purpose: The present study aimed to compare the occurrence and pattern of disfluencies in Tamil and English medium children.
Participants: This study consisted of two groups. Group 1 and group 2 consisted of 40 children from English and Tamil medium children. Children were in the age range of 4 to 6 years.
Method: Speech samples were collected using narration of a story and analysed the total number of disfluencies.
Result: The results revealed that there is a significant difference in the mean percentage of total disfluencies between Tamil and English medium children. The children of English medium children show significantly more number of disfluencies when compared to Tamil medium children. The results also revealed there is no significant difference in occurrence of disfluencies between male and female children. In this study the percentage of disfluencies is more in English medium when compared to Tamil medium children. This is because of their communicating language preference in school, their medium of school and the duration of language exposure for both English and Tamil medium children.
Key words: Fluency, Disfluency, Dysfluency, Task, English and Tamil medium.