Desensitizing parents of preschool children who stutter: The effect on attitudes and anxiety of both children and parents

Objective

This study aims to investigate if preschool children’s communication attitudes and speech behaviors, and their parents’ feelings and attitudes towards stuttering, overall parenting attitudes, and anxiety levels differ after desensitizing the parents to stuttering.

Material and Methods

20 preschool children who stutter (CWS) and their parents participated in the study. Employing one-group pre-test–post-test experimental design, the research data were collected before the therapy, immediately after the therapy, and three months post-therapy for follow-up. The mothers and fathers completed the Turkish version of ‘‘Stuttering-Parental Diagnostic Questionnaire”, “Parental Attitude Scale”, and “The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory”, while the children were administered “Turkish Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter”. The therapy was carried out across 8 weeks and 10 sessions in total only with the parents. For statistical analysis, independent t-test was used for the difference between two independent groups, and repeated measures analysis of variance was utilized to compare pre, post and follow-up data.

Results

Following the desensitization therapy applied to the parents, statistically significant positive improvements were observed in children’s communication attitudes and speech behaviors and in parents’ feelings and attitudes towards stuttering. Based on the 4 types of parenting styles (Karabulut Demir & Şendil, 2008), the parents exhibited significantly more democratic and less authoritarian, less overprotective, and less permissive attitudes. The decrease in the overall anxiety levels of the parents was also statistically significant.

Conclusions

Desensitizing parents to stuttering was effective for the management of stuttering during preschool years for both parties— the parents and their children