Event

HESP Seminar: Social cognition and communication attitude in childhood stuttering

Tuesday, March 14, 2023
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2208 LeFrak Hall or Zoom
https://umd.zoom.us/j/95559343228

Title: "Social cognition and communication attitude in childhood stuttering"

Speaker: Katie Winters (Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research)

Abstract: Though adults report the adverse consequences of their stuttering began in early childhood, markedly few studies have explored contributions to psychosocial and emotional components of stuttering in young children. One previous study suggests caregivers of older children who stutter (ages 7-12 years) overestimate how negatively their child feels about their communication. To date, no study has investigated if caregiver perception of their young child’s communication attitude accurately reflects their child’s attitude (ages 3-6 years). Additionally, although children begin to distinguish others’ thoughts and feelings from their own (i.e., cognitive and affective perspective taking) prior to and throughout typical stuttering onset, no study to date has investigated social cognition as a possible influence on caregiver-child communication attitude agreement. This research investigates caregiver perception of their young child who stutters’ communication attitude and the effects of cognitive/affective perspective taking on caregiver-child communication attitude agreement in a representative sample of caregiver-child dyads in the United States. Results suggest caregivers who report less caregiver-child conflict more accurately perceive their child’s communication attitude. Neither caregiver confidence in their perception nor stuttering severity influenced the relationship between caregiver perception and child-reported communication attitude. Cognitive and affective perspective taking did not predict caregiver-child communication attitude agreement; however, children’s articulation ability did. Clinical implications for speech-language pathologists working with young children who stutter and their caregivers and future directions are discussed.