Factors involved in the identification of stuttering severity in a foreign language

Abstract

Speech-language pathologists nowadays are more and more confronted with clients who speak a language different from their own mother tongue. The assessment of persons who speak a foreign language poses particular challenges. The present study investigated the possible role and interplay of factors involved in the identification of stuttering severity in a foreign language. Nineteen speech-language pathologists from five different countries (i.e. Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Belgium) rated stuttering severity of speech samples featuring persons who stutter speaking Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, or Dutch. Additionally, they were asked to score how easy they found it to rate the samples. Accuracy of rating stuttering severity in another language appeared to be foremost determined by the client’s stuttering severity, while experienced ease of rating stuttering severity was essentially related to closeness of the language of the clinician to that of the client and familiarity of the clinician with the client’s language. Stuttering measurement training programmes in different languages are needed.

• Stuttering assessment
• language familiarity
• language closeness
• stuttering severity
• experience

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants within STUREN to have taken part in the study.

Declaration of interest

This study was financially supported by Nordforsk. The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Notes

¹Note: The verb ‘to identify’ is used when raters were informed that the persons they were listening to were persons who stutter. For studies in which raters did not know whether the persons shown were persons who stutter, the verb ‘to assess’ is used.