ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the theoretical issues and current procedures within the context of normal disfluency and early stuttering and then in relation to the assessment of speech and attitudes in the confirmed stutterer. The assessment of the ratio of normal to tenuous fluency adds an important dimension to the assessment of stuttering severity and may well prove to have prognostic implications. Several different approaches have been developed in the attempt to identify different disfluency profiles in stuttering children. The assessment of stuttering behaviour has two main functions: first to assist in diagnosis and treatment planning and second, to evaluate the effects of treatment. One of the biggest problems in assessing stuttering behaviour is obtaining a representative speech sample. Where treatment teaches a pattern of fluent speech rather than the modification of stuttering this may well be true, and so in this case the assessment of concomitant behaviours could be redundant.
