Comparing the Clinical Judgments of Stuttering Specialists to Stuttering Severity Rated by the Paradise-Fluency Assessment (P-FA)

Lee, Eun-Ju; Park, Jung-Hyun; Shin, Moon-Ja; Sim, Hyun-Sub

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2009;14(2): 200-211.

Eun-Ju Lee^` , Jung-Hyun Park^` , Moon-Ja Shin^` , and Hyun-Sub Sim^`

이은주(Eun-Ju Lee)| 박정현(Jung-Hyun Park)| 신문자(Moon-Ja Shin)| 심현섭(Hyun-Sub Sim)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
The purpose of this study was to compare fluency specialists’subjective clinical judgments of stuttering with objective severity, as rated by the Paradise-Fluency Assessment (P-FA). We aimed to provide a reference that would be of use in revising the P-FA.
Methods
Five fluency specialists were asked to judge the severity of stuttering of 36 people who stutter (i.e., 12 preschoolers, 12 school-age children, and 12 adults) on a four-point scale after watching video clips recording the participants’ utterances elicited by the P-FA items. Additionally, two different researchers rated the same 36 participants’ speech samples based on the P-FA.
Results
Findings showed high inter-rater agreement in clinical judgments of stuttering severity. Similarly, a high degree of intra-rater agreement was observed in clinical judgments across the two evaluations. However, the judges tended to report lower stuttering severity on the four-point scale compared to severity ratings calculated using the P-FA. No statistically significant relationship was found between the clinical judgments and the P-FA scores in the case of preschool children and adults. However, there was a statistically significant relationship for school-age children.
Discussion & Conclusion
These findings suggest guidelines for the revision of the P-FA. The data also provide a springboard for further discussion of stuttering assessment.

Keywords: 파라다이스-유창성 검사 | 임상적 판단 | 전문가 Paradise-Fluency Assessment (P-FA) | clinical judgments | fluency specialist