Purpose: It is theorized that stuttering emerges as the result of an interaction between constitutional and environmental factors and that constitutional factors in persistent stuttering may include an emotionally-reactive temperament. The purpose of this pilot study is to examine the reactive/“sensitive” temperament characteristic of children who stutter relative to children who do not stutter, as evidenced by the acoustic startle response and scores on the following subscales of a temperament measure: anger/frustration, fear, inhibitory control, and shyness. Methods: Twenty seven school-age children participated in this study. There were thirteen children who stutter (CWS) and fourteen normally-fluent children. Participants were between the ages of 8:0 and 14:0. Each child participated in an acoustic startle response task, and caregivers completed a standardized temperament/personality assessment on their child. Results: Results indicated that CWS do not demonstrate statistically significant higher levels of physiological reactivity, as measured by mean normalized RMS amplitude of startle response scores, compared to their fluent peers. Further, there was no statistically significant correlation between subscale scores on standardized temperament/personality assessments. Conclusions: Improving on methodologies of past studies, the present investigation employed epidemiologically-sound groups, as well as clearly-delineated and replicable EMG procedures, normalization of EMG data, and neurophysiological measures of temperament combined with caregiver temperament questionnaire. Findings are in contradiction to several studies that have reported higher levels of trait anxiety or “nervousness” in adults who stutter.
Purpose: It is theorized that stuttering emerges as the result of an interaction between constitutional and environmental factors and that constitutional factors in persistent stuttering may include an emotionally-reactive temperament. The purpose of this pilot study is to examine the reactive/“sensitive” temperament characteristic of children who stutter relative to children who do not stutter, as evidenced by the acoustic startle response and scores on the following subscales of a temperament measure: anger/frustration, fear, inhibitory control, and shyness. Methods: Twenty seven school-age children participated in this study. There were thirteen children who stutter (CWS) and fourteen normally-fluent children. Participants were between the ages of 8:0 and 14:0. Each child participated in an acoustic startle response task, and caregivers completed a standardized temperament/personality assessment on their child. Results: Results indicated that CWS do not demonstrate statistically significant higher levels of physiological reactivity, as measured by mean normalized RMS amplitude of startle response scores, compared to their fluent peers. Further, there was no statistically significant correlation between subscale scores on standardized temperament/personality assessments. Conclusions: Improving on methodologies of past studies, the present investigation employed epidemiologically-sound groups, as well as clearly-delineated and replicable EMG procedures, normalization of EMG data, and neurophysiological measures of temperament combined with caregiver temperament questionnaire. Findings are in contradiction to several studies that have reported higher levels of trait anxiety or “nervousness” in adults who stutter.
INTRODUCTION METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION
