J. FLUENCY DISORD. 14 (1989), 351-358 MEASUREMENT OF STUTTERING FREQUENCY IN CHILDREN’S SPEECH zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO SHELLEY B. BRUNDAGE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPON University of Minnesota, M inneapolis NAN BERNSTEIN RATNER The University of Maryland, College Park This article addresses the relationship between three different indices of utterance length (mean length of utterance in morphemes, syllables, and words) and the frequency of stut- tering in children’s speech. Spontaneous speech samples from eight stuttering children were analyzed, and correlations between length-of-utterance measures and stuttering frequency were computed. While all increases in utterance length are significantly well correlated with fluency breakdown, increasing the length of short utterances in word increments is more likely to impair fluency of output than is increasing utterance length by adding syllables or morphemes. Additionally, there is little correlation between the percentage of words dys- fluent in a spontaneous sample and either percent morphemes or syllables dysfluent. We conclude that measurement of, or manipulation of, utterance length in words is a cruder gauge of fluency ability than are morphemic or syllabic length of utterance. INTRODUCTION It has become fairly common for therapeutic approaches to stuttering in children to advocate that children be paced through a series of stages during which the length of their expected output is gradually increased. This so-called Gradual Increase in Length and Complexity of Utterance (GILCU) approach (Ryan, 1984) is conceptually a part of a large number of therapy protocols, such as Costello’s (1984) Extended Length of Ut- terance program, or those described by Shine (1984) and Culp (1984), to name just a few. However, it has recently been noted that the effects of “complexity” on fluency have not been well studied (Bernstein Ratner and Sih, 1987). Additionally, relatively little is known about the specific effects that increases in utterance length have upon fluency behaviors in young children. Some research has examined the effects of utterance length on stut- tering frequency in adults. Tornick and Bloodstein (1976) required 14 adult Address correspondence to Shelley B. Brundage, University of Minnesota, 164 Pillsbury Drive, S.E., 110 Shevlin Hall, Department of Communication Disorders, Minneapolis, MN 55455. 0 1989 by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 351 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 0094-730x%9/$3.50