Gene J. Brutten

Speech-associated attitudes of stuttering and nonstuttering children.

A Dutch version of the Communication Attitude Test (Brutten, 1985) was used to assess the speech-associated attitudes of 70 stuttering and 271 nonstuttering Belgian children of elementary and middle school age. The results showed that the stuttering children evidenced significantly more negative attitudes toward speech than did their nonstuttering peers. This difference was present from age 7, the youngest age group studied, on up. Moreover, a significant group x age interaction revealed that the speech-related attitudes of the stuttering children became more negative with increasing age. In contrast, those of the nonstuttering children became less negative after age 9. These findings suggest that, in the course of fluency therapy for youngsters who stutter, negative attitudes toward speech should be addressed. This is especially true if, as with adults who stutter, negative attitudes are predictive of therapeutic failure.

The communication attitude test: A normative study of grade school children

Abstract The Communication Attitude Test (C.A.T.), a 35-item questionnaire designed to assess the speech-associated beliefs of children, was administered to 518 youngsters in grades 2–8 whose speech was considered to be normal. The children, approximately half from each sex, ranged in age from 6 to 15. Their average C.A.T. score (8.24) indicated the presence of little in the way of negative attitudes toward speech; what was evidenced decreased significantly from the second to the eighth grade. However, the test means did not vary to a statistically meaningful extent with either age or sex.

The relationship between communication attitude and emotion of children who stutter

Abstract Mal-attitude and negative emotion specific to speech are known to correlate with severity among children who stutter. To determine if speech-associated mal-attitude and negative emotion also covary with each other, 143 grade-school children who stutter were administered Bruttens Communication Attitude Test (CAT). Then, independently, they also ranked their emotional reaction to those items of the CAT that had led them to report mal-attitude. The results revealed the existence of a statistically significant correlation of .89 between mal-attitude and negative emotion. Moreover, both speech-associated mal-attitude and negative emotion increased to a statistically significant extent with age and stuttering severity. These data highlight the importance of early detection and intervention as it relates to the cognitive and affective components of the stuttering syndrome. Educational Objectives: The reader will learn and be able to describe the relationship between school-age childrens (1) stuttering and their mal-attitudes toward speech, (2) Their mal-attitudes and negative emotional reactions to speaking, and (3) the charges that occur in stuttering severity, mal-attitudes and negative emotional reactions between ages 7 and 13 years.

The Speech-Associated Attitude of Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter and the Differential Effect of Age

Fifty-five Flemish children, ages 6 to 13, who stuttered and 55 who did not were the subjects of a two (group) by eight (age) factorial investigation of their response to a Dutch translation of the...

The relationship between communication attitude and fluency failure of stuttering and nonstuttering children

This investigation was designed to determine the relationship, if any, between the speech-associated beliefs and fluency failures of grade-school children who do and do not stutter. Toward this end, a Dutch version of the Communication Attitude Test (C.A.T.) was administered to 55 age-matched Belgian children representative of the two groups. Their C.A.T. scores and the degree to which they emitted fluency failures during oral reading and conversation were correlated. For the children in the experimental group, the C.A.T. scores covaried to a statistically significant extent with both the failures thought to characterize stuttering and those considered to be normal disfluencies. In contrast, the communication attitude scores of the nonstutterers did not correlate with the display of either of these classes of fluency failure. These findings would seem to indicate both that the difference between children who stutter and those who do not involves more than the degree to which their speech is disrupted and that determining the communication attitude of children whose fluency is problematic can serve as an aid in differential diagnostic assessment and therapeutic considerations.

Persistence and remission of incipient stuttering among high-risk children

This investigation concerns the persistence of stuttering and recovery from it among high-risk children. At the end of the second year of a 6-year prospective study, 26 of 93 preschool children with a parental history of stuttering were classified as stutterers. Four years later, seven of these children were classified as persistent stutterers, and 16 children were classified as recovered stutterers. The articulatory and linguistic skills of these two groups of children and the communicative and speaking behaviors of their mothers, were measured before and after the onset of stuttering. The analysis of these measures revealed that the articulatory skills of the children and the communicative style and language complexity of the mothers differentiated the incipient stutters whose stuttering subsequently became chronic from those who recovered.

Child and mother variables in the development of stuttering among high-risk children: A longitudinal study

In this prospective study, 26 of the 93 preschool children with a parental history of stuttering who began to stutter were compared at preonset and 1 year later with those of a matched group of 26 children who continued to be seen as nonstutterers. These two groups of at-risk children were compared in terms of the development of their articulatory and language skills and in terms of the communicative style and speaking behaviors of their mothers. At preonset, the children who started to stutter demonstrated a faster articulatory rate than those who remained fluent. One year later, however, this difference was no longer statistically significant. The two groups of children did not differ in their linguistic skills at either of these time periods. Moreover, the communicative style and speaking behaviors of the mothers of the children who later began to stutter did not differ from that of the mothers of children who did not either prior to or after the onset of stuttering. This suggests that these variables did not contribute to the onset of stuttering or to its course.

Speech-motor and linguistic skills of young stutterers prior to onset☆

Abstract Theorists have increasingly suggested that both speech-motor and linguistic factors are involved in the etiology of stuttering. This contention has been supported by findings that tend to indicate that youngsters who stutter have a slower speech rate and are less linguistically skilled than nonstutterers. However, no inferences can be drawn from these findings as to the nature or the causation of this disorder. This is because the aforementioned findings might be a result rather than a cause of the disorder. In order to clarify the directionality issue, a multi-year prospective study was undertaken that involved 93 preschool children with a parental history of stuttering. At the initial session, none of the high-risk children sampled was regarded as having a stuttering problem. One year later, 26 children were classified as stutterers. Statistical analyses revealed that prior to the onset of stuttering these children did not differ from the other youngsters studied with respect to either their receptive or expressive language abilities. However, their rate of articulation was significantly faster. The latter finding is taken to mean that the children who developed stuttering were not limited in speechmotor ability. Rather, their fluency failures are seen as a result of a relatively high articulation rate. It is noteworthy, in this regard, that the rate of the high-risk children who continued to be viewed as nonstutterers was slower than that previously reported for youngsters of their age. This suggests that the slower rate served as a buffer against fluency breakdown.

Speech-associated attitudes : stuttering, voice disordered, articulation disordered, and normal speaking children

Abstract A Dutch version of the Communication Attitude Test (CAT-D) was administered to four groups of children: stutterers, those with voice disorders, those with articulation problems, and those whose speech was considered to be normal. The subjects ranged in age from 7 to 14 years. The speech-associated attitudes of the stuttering and the voice disordered children did not differ to a statistically significant extent. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between the test scores of the children with articulation disorders and their normal speaking peers. However, these latter two subject groups showed significantly fewer negative speech attitudes than did either the stuttering or the voice disordered subjects. The results indicate that the extent of negative speech-associated attitudes depends on the nature of the speech disorder.

The relationship between stutterers' cognitive and autonomic anxiety and therapy outcome

Abstract Following therapy, a group of 33 stutterers showed a statistically significant reduction in stuttering and adjustive behaviors, as well as in certain indices of autonomic and cognitive anxiety. The decrease in stuttering correlated negatively with a pretreatment measure of autonomic anxiety. In contrast, the reduction in adjustive behaviors correlated negatively with pretreatment measure of cognitive anxiety. This suggests that the anxiety determinants of speech improvement among those who stutter are different for different categories of fluency failure.