Stuttering has a lifetime incidence (i.e., percentage of adults who ever stuttered) of nearly 5% and significantly impacts the academic, emotional, social, and vocational achievements, development and potential of individuals who stutter (see Bloodstein &Bernstein Ratner, 2008). However, seventy-eighty percent of those affected discontinue (e.g., Yairi &Ambrose, 1999) without significant formal treatment (i.e., """"""""unassisted"""""""" recovery). For the remaining children (i.e., approximately 1% of children who continue to stutter after 6 years of age), the negative impact of stuttering on their lives and daily activities can be significant. There is a strong need, therefore, to determine variables that may initiate/cause, exacerbate or perpetuate stuttering to develop more efficient, effective empirically-based approaches to diagnosis and treatment. Further, as Yairi (1993) noted, """"""""Because advanced stuttering is markedly different from the incipient form...attempts to infer its [stuttering's] etiology and nature or to prescribe treatment for children who stutter based on models derived from adult stutterers are indefensible"""""""" (Conture, 1991;Yairi, 1990;p.198). Thus, it is imperative to examine variables in the period during which stuttering typically begins. To address this imperative, we propose a longitudinal study of preschool-age children who stutter, with emphasis on how emotion and speech-language processes contribute to developmental stuttering. Building on Monroe and Simons'(1991) etiological notion of diathesis-stress interactions, the applicants'conceptual model proposes that dual diatheses (i.e., emotional and/or speech-language vulnerabilities) are activated by environmental stressors (e.g., changes, differences, novelty in structure and/or changes in need to spontaneously generate speech-language) to cause stuttering. This model assumes that a finite number of combinations of emotional and/or speech-language variables contribute to meaningful differences between children who do and do not stutter, as well as between children who recover and those who persist. The proposed project builds on our preliminary findings and theoretical model, longitudinally, to relate emotional and speech-language to developmental stuttering, using multiple methods (i.e., observational, standardized testing, parent-report, and psychophysiology) that assess our major constructs of emotion and speech-language. This interdisciplinary investigation - involving collaboration between developmental psychology and speech-language pathology - should help determine whether children at the onset of stuttering differ from their normally fluent peers on emotion and speech-language variables and whether these differences, over time, predict which children will and will not recover. Findings from this longitudinal investigation will help ground the study of stuttering within the broader context of emotional and speech- language development and help focus future research on issues that inform diagnostic and treatment protocols for childhood stuttering.

Public Health Relevance

Stuttering has a lifetime incidence (i.e., percentage of adults who stuttered at some point) of nearly 5% and significantly impacts the academic, emotional, social, and vocational achievements, development and potential of individuals who stutter (see Bloodstein and Bernstein Ratner, 2008;Conture, 1996;Yairi, 1997). For the remaining children (i.e., the approximately 1% of children who continue to stutter after 6 years of age), the negative impact of stuttering on their lives and daily activities can be significant. Thus, there is a strong need to determine those variables that may initiate/cause, exacerbate or perpetuate stuttering - as this project will attempt to do - in order to eventually develop more efficient, effective empirically-based approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of stuttering.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01DC000523-14A2
Application #
7781111
Study Section
Motor Function, Speech and Rehabilitation Study Section (MFSR)
Program Officer
Shekim, Lana O
Project Start
1996-07-01
Project End
2015-07-31
Budget Start
2010-08-01
Budget End
2011-07-31
Support Year
14
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$573,733
Indirect Cost
Name
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Department
Otolaryngology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
004413456
City
Nashville
State
TN
Country
United States
Zip Code
37212
Zengin-Bolatkale, Hatun; Conture, Edward G; Walden, Tedra A et al. (2018) Sympathetic arousal as a marker of chronicity in childhood stuttering. Dev Neuropsychol 43:135-151
Choi, Dahye; Conture, Edward G; Tumanova, Victoria et al. (2018) Young children's family history of stuttering and their articulation, language and attentional abilities: An exploratory study. J Commun Disord 71:22-36
Tumanova, Victoria; Choi, Dahye; Conture, Edward G et al. (2018) Expressed parental concern regarding childhood stuttering and the Test of Childhood Stuttering. J Commun Disord 72:86-96
Erdemir, Aysu; Walden, Tedra A; Jefferson, Caswell M et al. (2018) The effect of emotion on articulation rate in persistence and recovery of childhood stuttering. J Fluency Disord 56:1-17
Zengin-Bolatkale, Hatun; Conture, Edward G; Key, Alexandra P et al. (2018) Cortical associates of emotional reactivity and regulation in childhood stuttering. J Fluency Disord 56:81-99
Jones, Robin M; Walden, Tedra A; Conture, Edward G et al. (2017) Executive Functions Impact the Relation Between Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia and Frequency of Stuttering in Young Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter. J Speech Lang Hear Res 60:2133-2150
Buhr, Anthony P; Jones, Robin M; Conture, Edward G et al. (2016) The function of repeating: The relation between word class and repetition type in developmental stuttering. Int J Lang Commun Disord 51:128-36
Choi, Dahye; Conture, Edward G; Walden, Tedra A et al. (2016) Emotional Diathesis, Emotional Stress, and Childhood Stuttering. J Speech Lang Hear Res 59:616-30
Groner, Stephen; Walden, Tedra; Jones, Robin (2016) Factors Associated With Negative Attitudes Toward Speaking in Preschool-Age Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter. Contemp Issues Commun Sci Disord 43:255-267
Zengin-Bolatkale, Hatun; Conture, Edward G; Walden, Tedra A (2015) Sympathetic arousal of young children who stutter during a stressful picture naming task. J Fluency Disord 46:24-40

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