Veera Pirinen

Speech involves complex cognitive, linguistic, and motor processes, and disruptions can cause disfluencies in both typical and stuttered speech. This study examined disfluencies in autistic young adults (n=32, aged 19–33) and controls (n=35, aged 19–29), exploring connections with cognitive skills, linguistic complexity, autistic traits, social anxiety, and physiological reactivity. Participants narrated events from video clips, with disfluencies categorized as typical (TD), stuttering-like (SLD), or atypical (AD). Autistic individuals produced significantly more disfluencies and had higher stuttering severity, especially males. TD was predicted by cognitive skills, while syntactic complexity predicted SLD and stuttering severity. Physiological arousal during speaking was higher in both groups, but only in controls did it correlate with disfluencies. No associations were found in the autistic group. The findings emphasize assessing disfluencies comprehensively, as contributing factors may differ between autistic individuals and neurotypical controls.