Cluster analysis of articulatory trajectories in fluent nonword productions separates adults who stutter from fluent speakers

Abstract

Abstract Whether fluent-sounding utterances of adults who stutter are normally articulated is unclear. We asked 15 patients and 17 matched controls to utter a pseudoword while recording real-time MRI at 55 frames per second in a midsagittal plane, and we automatically clustered participants for distances between sites of articulation. Clustering was successful in 80% of the cases, indicating major differences in the movement patterns of fluent sounding utterances in both groups.