ARCHIEVE

The Relationship Between Stuttering and Language Skills in Children

Elif Atılgan
Abstract

Purpose: Between the ages of 2-4 years are the most common period that stuttering starts coincides with the period when children acquire syntax and semantic skills (Bernstein Ratner, 1997). According to psycholinguistic models, stuttering results from deficiencies in syntactic, lexical, phonological, phonetic, and/or suprasegmental encoding or recall during speech production (Postma & Kolk, 1993; Howell, 2004; Perkins et al., 1991). The relationship between language skills and stuttering in children has been the subject of discussion for many years. The aim of this article, is to review the literatüre about the relationship between stuttering and language skills in detail. Studies about the language skills of children with stuttering, the effect of language skills on the onset of stuttering, and spontaneous recovery; and the relationship between executive functions, language and stuttering are reviewed. Method: The traditional literature review method was used in this study. The available literature on the relationship between stuttering and language skills in children was studied. Results: The results of the review of the studies that compare the language skills of children who do and do not stutter with standardized language tests are controversial. Although there are many studies demonstrating that children who do stutter had poorer performance than children without stuttering, it is not possible to make such a generalization. On the other hand, almost all of the limited studies which compare the language performance of Turkish-speaking preschool children with and without stutter, have shown that children with stuttering have poorer language performances (Aydın Uysal & Fidan, 2017; Topsakal, 2019; Eyilikeder Tekin, 2021). In addition to this, there is evidence that children who do stutter have more performance dissociations across linguistic domains than children who do not stutter. Evidence has been found that both poorer and more advanced language skills are risk factors for the onset and persistence of stuttering. Research demonstrated that children who do stutter have problems with language coding, planning, recalling, and executive functions. Conclusion: The different results of studies comparing the language skills of children with and without stuttering may be due to methodological problems and/or individual differences. It would be more appropriate to interpret these weaknesses, which can be seen in the language skills of children with stuttering, as subtle differences, or deficiencies rather than as language disorders. In light of evidence from the literature, it seems necessary to examine the language skills of children in the assessment of stuttering. When deficiency in language skills is found, it would be appropriate to include interventions for these language skills in stuttering therapy. More research is needed to explain which phases of coding, planning and production are causes of the weakness or differences in the language skills of children with stuttering. 

Keywords

stuttering, developmental stuttering, language skills, executive functions

References

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