Psychological characteristics of early stuttering

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to use psychological measures of pre-schoolers who stutter and their parents to inform causal theory development and influence clinical practices. This was done using data from a substantive clinical cohort of children who received early stuttering treatment.

Method

The cohort (N = 427) comprised parents and their children who were treated with the Lidcombe Program, the Westmead Program, and the Oakville Program. The study incorporated demographic information, stuttering severity, and child and parent psychological measures prior to treatment.

Result

The cohort revealed nothing unusual about behavioural and emotional functioning, or the temperaments, of pre-school children that would influence treatment, be targeted during treatment, or influence causal theory development. However, a third of parents were experiencing moderate to high life stressors at the time of seeking treatment, and half the parents failed first-stage screening for Anankastic Personality Disorder.

Conclusion

The present results are consistent with a number of previous reports that showed that the population of pre-schoolers who stutter have no unusual psychological profiles. Hence, these results suggest that the association between mental health and stuttering later in life is a consequence of the disorder rather than being a part of its cause. The finding of the life stress of parents who seek stuttering treatment for pre-school children has potential clinical importance and warrants further investigation. Further psychological research is required about parents of pre-school children who stutter, because half the parents in the cohort failed the screener for Anankastic Personality Disorder. This is of interest because a previous study associated screening failure for another personality disorder (Impulsive Personality Disorder) with treatment dropout for early childhood stuttering.

Keywords:

• early stuttering
• clinical characteristics
• early intervention

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge Damien Liu-Brennan for his scientific copyediting contribution to this publication.

Declaration of interest

All authors certify the absence of any conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests and relationships and affiliations relevant to the subject of this paper.

Notes

1 In the Trajkovski et al., (2019) clinical trial, the Oakville Program was referred to as Westmead-2.

2 The parent severity rating scale has since changed from 1–10 to 0–9 (Bridgman, Onslow, O’Brian, Block, & Jones, 2011).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Program Grants 1132370, 402763, and 633007 from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.