Search

Purpose: To our knowledge, there are no data examining the agreement between self-reported and clinician-rated stuttering severity. In the era of big data, self-reported ratings have great potential utility for large-scale data collection, where cost and time preclude in-depth assessment by a clinician. Equally, there is increasing emphasis on the need to recognize an individual's experience of their own condition. Here, we examined the agreement between self-reported stuttering severity compared to clinician ratings during a speech assessment. As a secondary objective, we determined whether self-reported stuttering severity correlated with an individual's subjective impact of stuttering., Method: Speech-language pathologists conducted face-to-face speech assessments with 195 participants (137 males) aged 5-84 years, recruited from a cohort of people with self-reported stuttering. Stuttering severity was rated on a 10-point scale by the participant and by two speech-language pathologists. Participants also completed the Overall Assessment of the Subjective Experience of Stuttering (OASES). Clinician and participant ratings were compared. The association between stuttering severity and the OASES scores was examined., Results: There was a strong positive correlation between speech-language pathologist and participant-reported ratings of stuttering severity. Participant-reported stuttering severity correlated weakly with the four OASES domains and with the OASES overall impact score., Conclusions: Participants were able to accurately rate their stuttering severity during a speech assessment using a simple one-item question. This finding indicates that self-report stuttering severity is a suitable method for large-scale data collection. Findings also support the collection of self-report subjective experience data using questionnaires, such as the OASES, which add vital information about the participants' experience of stuttering that is not captured by overt speech severity ratings alone.

Purpose: Stuttering is a speech condition that can have a major impact on a person's quality of life. This descriptive study aimed to identify subgroups of people who stutter (PWS) based on stuttering burden and to investigate differences between these subgroups on psychosocial aspects of life., Method: The study included 618 adult participants who stutter. They completed a detailed survey examining stuttering symptomatology, impact of stuttering on anxiety, education and employment, experience of stuttering, and levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. A two-step cluster analytic procedure was performed to identify subgroups of PWS, based on self-report of stuttering frequency, severity, affect, and anxiety, four measures that together inform about stuttering burden., Results: We identified a high- ( n = 230) and a low-burden subgroup ( n = 372). The high-burden subgroup reported a significantly higher impact of stuttering on education and employment, and higher levels of general depression, anxiety, stress, and overall impact of stuttering. These participants also reported that they trialed more different stuttering therapies than those with lower burden., Conclusions: Our results emphasize the need to be attentive to the diverse experiences and needs of PWS, rather than treating them as a homogeneous group. Our findings also stress the importance of personalized therapeutic strategies for individuals with stuttering, considering all aspects that could influence their stuttering burden. People with high-burden stuttering might, for example, have a higher need for psychological therapy to reduce stuttering-related anxiety. People with less emotional reactions but severe speech distortions may also have a moderate to high burden, but they may have a higher need for speech techniques to communicate with more ease. Future research should give more insights into the therapeutic needs of people highly burdened by their stuttering., Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25582980.

Purpose: This study investigated the effectiveness of the stuttering modification intervention Kinder Dürfen Stottern (KIDS) in school-age children who stutter., Method: Seventy-three children who stutter were included in this multicenter, two-group parallel, randomized, wait-list controlled trial with a follow-up of 12 months. Children aged 7-11 years were recruited from 34 centers for speech therapy and randomized to either the immediate-treatment group or the 3 months delayed-treatment group. KIDS was provided by 26 clinicians who followed a treatment manual. Although the primary outcome measure was the impact of stuttering (Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering-School-Age [OASES-S]), the secondary outcomes included objective and subjective data on stuttering severity., Results: At 3 months postrandomization, the mean score changes of the OASES-S differed significantly between the experimental ( n = 33) and control group ( n = 29; p = .026). Furthermore, treatment outcomes up to 12 months were analyzed ( n = 59), indicating large effects of time on the OASES-S score ( p < .001, partial η 2 = .324). This was paralleled by significant improvements in parental ratings and objective ratings (stuttering severity, frequency, and physical concomitants)., Conclusions: The significant short-term treatment effects in the OASES-S are in line with the (initial) focus of KIDS on cognitive and affective aspects of stuttering. Over 12 months, these changes were maintained and accompanied by behavioral improvements. The results suggest that individual treatment with KIDS is an adequate treatment option for this age group., Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24207864.

Purpose: Very preterm (VPT) children are at risk for speech and language problems throughout school age. However, little is known about early speech sound production in these children. This study aims to present a detailed description of early speech sound production and its trajectories in VPT children from 2 to 4 years of age. In addition, this study aimed to determine if early speech sound production is associated with speech production and expressive language function at 4 years of age., Method: In 63 VPT children (< 32 weeks of gestation, 41 boys, mean gestational age = 28.8 weeks, mean birth weight = 1,135 g), speech sound production was assessed by naturalistic speech analysis at 2 years of corrected age and speech and language function by standardized tests at 4 years of age., Results: Speech sound production was found to be abnormal in 49% of the VPT children at 2 years of age and in 19% at 4 years of age. Four different speech production trajectories from 2 to 4 years of age could be identified: a normal trajectory, an abnormal trajectory, a catch-up trajectory, and a growing-into-deficit trajectory. Early speech production, defined by the number of acquired consonants at 2 years of age, significantly predicted the word production score at 4 years of age and the sentence production score at 4 years of age., Conclusions: Compared to the general population, an alarmingly high proportion of VPT children showed speech production problems at 2 years of age. About half of these children showed persistent speech problems at 4 years of age. Moreover, these problems were associated with expressive language problems at the age of 4 years., Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19310822.

Purpose: Behavior and temperament (e.g., emotional reactivity, self-regulation) have been considered relevant to stuttering and its developmental course, but the direction of this relation is still unknown. Knowledge of behavior difficulties and temperament in childhood stuttering can improve screening and intervention. The current study examined both directions of the relationship between stuttering and behavior difficulties and temperament and between persistent stuttering and behavior difficulties and temperament across childhood., Method: This study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a population-based cohort from fetal life onward in the Netherlands. We analyzed data from 145 children (4.2%) with a history of stuttering (118 recovered, 27 persistent) and 3,276 children without such a history. Behavior and temperament were repeatedly assessed using parental questionnaires (Child Behavior Checklist) and Infant/Child Behavior Questionnaire between 0.5 and 9 years of age. Multiple logistic and linear regression analyses were performed., Results: Six-month-old children who were less able to "recover from distress," indicating poor self-regulation, were more likely to develop persistent stuttering later in childhood (odds ratio = 2.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) [1.03, 4.05], p = .04). In the opposite direction, children with a history of stuttering showed more negative affectivity (β = 0.19, 95% CI [0.02, 0.37], p = .03) at 6 years of age than children without such a history. Stuttering persistence was associated with increased internalizing behaviors (β = 0.38, 95% CI [0.03, 0.74], p = .04) and higher emotional reactivity (β = 0.53, 95% CI [0.09, 0.89], p = .02) at the age of 9 years., Conclusions: Behavior and temperament were associated with stuttering persistency-seemingly as both predictor and consequence-but did not predict a history of stuttering. We suggest that children who persist in stuttering should be carefully monitored, and if behavioral or temperamental problems appear, treatment for these problems should be offered. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16869479.

Purpose: This report investigates whether parent-reported stuttering severity ratings (SRs) provide similar estimates of effect size as percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS) for randomized trials of early stuttering treatment with preschool children., Method: Data sets from 3 randomized controlled trials of an early stuttering intervention were selected for analyses. Analyses included median changes and 95% confidence intervals per treatment group, Bland-Altman plots, analysis of covariance, and Spearman rho correlations., Results: Both SRs and %SS showed large effect sizes from pretreatment to follow-up, although correlations between the 2 measures were moderate at best. Absolute agreement between the 2 measures improved as percentage reduction of stuttering frequency and severity increased, probably due to innate measurement limitations for participants with low baseline severity. Analysis of covariance for the 3 trials showed consistent results., Conclusion: There is no statistical reason to favor %SS over parent-reported stuttering SRs as primary outcomes for clinical trials of early stuttering treatment. However, there are logistical reasons to favor parent-reported stuttering SRs. We conclude that parent-reported rating of the child's typical stuttering severity for the week or month prior to each assessment is a justifiable alternative to %SS as a primary outcome measure in clinical trials of early stuttering treatment.

Purpose: The purpose of this research note was to validate a simplified version of the Dutch nonword repetition task (NWR; Rispens & Baker, 2012). The NWR was shortened and scoring was transformed to correct/incorrect nonwords, resulting in the shortened NWR (NWR-S)., Method: NWR-S and NWR performance were compared in the previously published data set of Rispens and Baker (2012; N = 88), who compared NWR performance in 5 participant groups: specific language impairment (SLI), reading impairment (RI), both SLI and RI, one control group matched on chronological age, and one control group matched on language age., Results: Analyses of variance showed that children with SLI + RI performed significantly worse than other participant groups in NWR-S, just as in NWR. Logistic regression analyses showed that both tasks can predict an SLI + RI outcome. NWR-S holds a sensitivity of 82.6% and a specificity of 95.4% in identifying children with SLI + RI. The sensitivity of the original NWR is 87.0% with a specificity of 87.7%., Conclusions: As the original NWR, the NWR-S comprising a subset of 22 nonwords scored with a simplified scoring system can identify children with combined SLI and RI while saving a significant amount of the needed assessment time., Supplemental Materials: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5150116.