۱- Introduction

۲- Method

۳- Results

۴- Discussion

۵- Conclusion and New Directions

References

Abstract

Purpose: This two-part (i.e., Study 1, Study 2) study investigated behavioral inhibition (BI) in preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not (CWNS) stutter. The purpose of Study 1 was to develop the Short Behavioral Inhibition Scale (SBIS), a parent-report scale of BI. The purpose of Study 2 was to determine, based on the SBIS, differences in BI between CWS and CWNS, and associations between BI and CWS’s stuttering frequency, stuttering severity, speech-associated attitudes, and stutteringrelated consequences/reactions. Method: Participants in Study 1 were 225 CWS and 243 CWNS with the majority of them being included in Study 2. In Study 2, a speech sample was obtained for the calculation of stuttering frequency and severity, and the parents of a subset of CWS completed the Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter (Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2007), and the Test of Childhood Stuttering Disfluency-Related Consequences Rating Scale (Gillam, Logan, & Pearson, 2009). Results: Study 1 analyses indicated that SBIS is a valid and reliable tool whose items assess a single, relatively homogeneous construct. In Study 2, CWS exhibited greater mean and extreme BI tendencies than CWNS. Also CWS with higher, compared to CWS with lower, BI presented with greater stuttering frequency, more severe stuttering, greater stuttering-related consequences, and more negative communication attitudes (for CWS older than 4 years of age). Conclusion: Findings were taken to suggest that BI is associated with early childhood stuttering and that the SBIS could be included as part of a comprehensive evaluation of stuttering.

Caveats

The principal component analysis indicated that SBIS items related to fear and reactivity had poor loadings and that a model without these items provided a better fit to the data. However, fear and reactivity have some degree of overlap with the construct of BI. Thus, the SBIS is less than a robust instrument for determining fear and reactivity components of BI, a limitation that should be noted by prospective users of SBIS. Also, some users might find the scoring of the test counterintuitive since higher scores indicate lower, rather than higher BI. Also, present SBIS results are based on parental responses, not unlike some findings resulting from other instruments used to test CWS, for example, the TOCS. Regardless, some clinicians as well as researchers may question the wisdom of relying on parental responses rather than, for example, more direct measurement of BI or BI-related behaviors like those of Choi et al (2013). Such questions are well taken but must await answers resulting from future research employing more direct measures. For the present, however, we would like to note Henderson and Wachs’s (2007) suggestion that although “parent report measures do contain some subjective parental components, available evidence indicates that these measures also contain a substantial objective component that does accurately assess children’s individual characteristics.” (p. 402).