# Inhibition and Working Memory Capacity in Adults Who Stutter

> **NIH NIH R21** · LOUISIANA STATE UNIV A&M COL BATON ROUGE · 2021 · $54,553

## Abstract

Project Summary
Stuttering is described as a multifactorial disorder that manifests as involuntary disruptions in the automatic,
fluent planning and production of speech. Lifelong stuttering has a crippling impact on academic achievement,
occupational success, and psychosocial wellness. Although early intervention can be successful to deter these
negative outcomes, many children who receive treatment continue to stutter into adulthood. Unfortunately, many
adults who stutter do not respond to treatment, and little is known about the mediating factors that many
contribute to an individual client’s response to intervention.
Recent advances in clinical and cognitive psychology have considered measures of executive function during
initial assessment to account for some of the variability across heterogeneous, difficult-to-treat clients. Executive
function is one potential moderating factor that has recently garnered theoretical and empirical interest relative
to stuttering in children, who exhibit weaknesses in two critical but overlapping aspects of executive function:
inhibition and working memory capacity. Adults who stutter also perform more poorly than non-stuttering adults
during tasks that require efficient inhibition processes or rely on phonological working memory, suggesting that
early executive function deficits remain a concern into adulthood and may serve as a sensitive predictor of
success during treatment. Consideration of executive function may be of even greater importance to adults who
stutter than children, as traditional and contemporary treatment approaches for older clients rely heavily on
inhibitory control of (a) actions, thoughts, or emotions, and/or (b) maintaining new target behaviors in working
memory. To date, however, the predictive value of executive function relative to clinical outcomes for adults who
stutter remains overlooked.
To address this critical gap, the proposed project will take the first steps in demonstrating the relevance of
executive function to behaviors which underlie successful clinical intervention for fluency disorders. Specifically,
this study will examine working memory in adults who do and do not stutter during inhibition of (1) speech and
non-speech motor movements [Aim 1], (2) intrusive negative cognitions related to speech production [Aim 2],
and (3) speech motor movement and negative cognitions related to speech production, simultaneously, similar
to everyday speech production for adults who stutter [Aim 3]. These proposed experimental studies will establish
important baseline data for future full-fledged clinical investigations of individual differences in executive function
in adults who stutter, and examining how these differences may interact with specific treatment strategies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10139015
- **Project number:** 5R21DC018109-02
- **Recipient organization:** LOUISIANA STATE UNIV A&M COL BATON ROUGE
- **Principal Investigator:** Geoffrey Coalson
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $54,553
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-06-01 → 2021-08-15

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10139015

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10139015, Inhibition and Working Memory Capacity in Adults Who Stutter (5R21DC018109-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10139015. Licensed CC0.

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