A Questionnaire Survey About Support Requests From School-Age Children and Adolescents Who Stutter

Exploring the Relationship Between Resilience and the Adverse Impact of Stuttering in Children

PURPOSE

People who stutter often experience significant adverse impact related to stuttering. However, it is unclear how adverse impact develops in children who stutter (CWS) and whether there are protective factors that may mitigate its development. This study examined the relationship between resilience, a potentially protective factor, and stuttering's adverse impact in CWS. Resilience comprises external factors, such as family support and access to resources as well as personal attributes, making it a comprehensive protective factor to explore.

METHOD

One hundred forty-eight CWS aged 5-18 years completed the age-appropriate version of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) and the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering. Parents completed a caregiver version of the CYRM and a behavioral checklist for their child. The adverse impact of stuttering was modeled as a function of resilience (external, personal, and total), controlling for child age and behavioral checklist score. We also estimated correlations between child-report and parent-report CYRM measures to assess rater agreement.

RESULTS

Children reporting greater external, personal, or total resilience were more likely to experience lower degrees of adverse impact related to their stuttering. We documented stronger correlations between younger child and parent ratings of resilience and weaker correlations between older child and parent ratings.

CONCLUSIONS

These results yield valuable insight into the variability of adverse impact experienced by CWS and offer empirical support for strength-based speech therapy approaches. We discuss the factors that contribute to a child's resilience and provide practical suggestions for how clinicians can incorporate resilience-building strategies into intervention for children experiencing significant adverse impact from their stuttering.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23582172.

Treatment for School-Age Children Who Stutter: A Systematic Review of Japanese Literature

PURPOSE

This systematic review identified and synthesized published research articles, written in Japanese, on the clinical effectiveness of a broad range of nonpharmacological interventions for school-age children who stutter.

METHOD

A systematic review of Japanese literature published between January 1, 1980, and July 7, 2020, reporting interventions for school-age children who stutter, was carried out through a search of two databases (CiNii Article database and Japan Medical Abstract Society database) using the key words "stuttering" and "school-age" or "child" or "primary school students" or "children" or "school child" in Japanese. To be included in the review, the articles must report studies where data were subjectively reported by clinicians, where school-age participants were treated for developmental stuttering, where participants received interventions conducted by clinicians, and where quantitative outcomes (pre- and/or posttreatment) were measured; and they must be published in Japanese.

RESULTS

Forty articles met all the inclusion criteria. Most articles adopted a case series or single-case study design. A total of 179 intervention programs were identified from all the articles and broadly classified into speech therapy, psychological therapy, interventions for modifying the child's environment, and others.

CONCLUSIONS

Our systematic review provided a broad overview of the treatments used for school-age children who stutter in Japan. Future research should focus on gathering more reliable, systematic, and rigorous evidence to establish the effectiveness of stuttering treatments for school-age children and thereby develop evidence-based practices.