PURPOSE: to characterize and compare the performance of children with diagnosis of stuttering under temporal pattern tests with the performance of children without complaints. METHOD: we evaluated 30 children between 9 and 12-year old, both genders, divided in two groups: GI - 15 children with persistent development stuttering; GII - 15 children without complaints and/or signals of psychiatric or neurological upheavals, speech, hearing, language and/or learning difficulties. To evaluate the auditory processing we applied Pitch Pattern Sequence Test (PPS) and Duration Pattern Sequence Test (DPS). RESULTS: group II showed a better performance on PPS and DPS tests when compared with group I. The results indicated that there was a significant statistical difference between the two groups. CONCLUSION: the subject on group I showed a bad performance on the tests applied, indicating that there is a relation between stuttering and auditory processing disorder.