Original Research

An application of learning theory to secondary aspects of stuttering

Margaret Marks
South African Journal of Communication Disorders | Journal of the South African Speech and Hearing Association: Vol 20, No 1 | a409 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/sajcd.v20i1.409 | © 2019 Margaret Marks | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 16 November 2016 | Published: 31 December 1973

About the author(s)

Margaret Marks, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

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Abstract

The concepts of primary and secondary stuttering are re-evoked to provide a framework for a discussion of the theoretical division of stuttering into a series of responses. The stuttering behaviours of an advanced stutterer are divided into those of awareness, avoidance, the 'moment of stuttering', a release response and the utterance of the word. One set of responses, those of avoidance, are treated within various learning theory paradigms, namely, the Mowrer-Ullman hypothesis, chaining, superstition, and an avoidance-escape dichotomy. Although no direct therapeutic implications are deduced from these analogies, the value for the speech pathologist of a knowledge of the principles and techniques of learning theory, is stressed.

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