The purpose of this thesis was to determine if stutterers monitor speech production differently than nonstutterers while in a state of oral sensory deprivation. The specific questions a~ked were: 1. Does an imposed oral somesthetic feedback deficit hinder articulation proficiency more in a nonstuttering sample than in a stuttering sample? 2: If the articulation proficiency is deficient in both samples, does the nature of the errors differ between the ·two. samples? The answers to these

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... were: 1. Articulatory proficiency of nonstutterers was not more impaired than stutterers. 2 2. The nature of the errors did not significantly differ for either of the samples. The .comparison of the monitoring ~bilities of speech in stutterers an~ nonsttltterers has become relevant in investigating the nature of stutte~ing. ) have established that stuttering behavior can be reduced with masking and/or DAF. Gruber (1965) and Mysak· (1976) have offere~ as one of the possible explanations for this effect to be a. "forced" shift in the monitoring of speech from a possibly faulty auditory feedback channel to a more efficient tactile-proprioceptive ssnsor. In light of th~ fluency effect of auditory feedback manipulation with stutterers, explained in terms of a "forced" monitoring shift to the.tactile-:-kinesthetic-proprioceptive sensory systems, and the idea that normally developing children spontaneously shift away from auditory monitoring to the oral sensory systerns, Gruber (1965) suggested stutterers may not ha:ve ·.ma~e this shift. This writer .hypothesized that the present investigation of nonstutterers' articulation would be less proficient than the stutterers' since the nonstutterers could no longer be r~lying upon ·oral sensory feedback in a state of oral sensory deprivation. Further, the stutter-. ers' articulation proficiency would be expected to be less affe~ted by the anesthetization if they are depen4ing less upon the ~actile-kines~hetic-proprioceptive feedback and more upon auditory sensory