Preponderance of Lead Voice Onset Times in Stutterers Under Varying Constraints

Differences between stutterers and nonstutterers in temporal organization of fluent speech may offer clues to the elemental basis of fully elaborated, perceptible stuttering events. Guided by this hypothesis, we investigated voice onset time—the interval between voice onset and upper articulatory stop release—in voiced stop consonants under varying constraints. Under variation of rate, lexical stress location, and location of key words beginning with voiced stops, the stutterers realized voiced stops by voicing before release (prevoicing), whereas the controls realized voiced stops by voicing following the release. The significance of this phonetic strategy difference for understanding and treating stuttering is discussed.