The effect of noxious cues on adaptation and adjacency in stuttering

Adaptation refers to the general tendency of stuttering frequency to decrease in a positive decelerating manner as oral reading of a passage is repeated. This effect also occurs in repeated readings of a word list, and may also be noticed in subsequent sections of long prose passages.The adaptation effect has been considered a laboratory model of the improvement process, and clinical significance has been attributed to its increment and decrement under specified experimental conditions. Further research with adaptation pointed up the role of specific words as harmful cues of past failure and indicated that the spread of effect resulted in adjacent stuttering behavior.A clinical model was proposed in which word cues indicative of past success would be placed so as not to emphasize previously stuttered words, It was assumed that a positive adjacency effect would take place through generalizations and that the speech behavior which follows will result in positive reinforcement. On the basis of these findings the present study was begun primarily to determine the effect of certain noxious cues (indications of past failure) on adaptation. A secondary purpose was to determine the extent to which certain noxious cues affect adjacent stuttering behavior.Ever since the eighteenth century beginnings of sociology as a discipline of thought, meaning, and analysis increasing numbers of its members have come to question the process of social and cultural change. Over time new elements in the process of change analysis have emerged through the thoughts of the theorists as the realizations concerning social change assumed new and more complex dimensions. For example, one realization was that there is a difference between the analytical assessment of such a process as change and the subjective and intellectual scrutiny of the conditions which are responsive toward and persistent against social and cultural changes.In essence this paper endeavors to illustrate some of the elements, as perceived by some twentieth century sociological theorists, that conceivably have utility for a theory of social and cultural change. For the most part the paper does not critically analyze their conclusions nor does the paper develop a synthesis that represents the thinking of the theorists as a singularly committed collectivity. At the present time to do either would require a presumptuousness on the part of an author who is simply quite unqualified and incapable of doing so.Thesis (M.A.