CHILD AND MOTHER VARIABLES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF STUTTERING AMONG HIGH-RISK CHILDREN - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY

In this prospective study, 26 of the 93 preschool children with a pare ntal history of stuttering who began to stuffer were compared at preon set and 1 year later with those of a matched group of 26 children who continued to be seen as nonstutterers. These two groups of at-risk chi ldren were compared in terms of the development of their articulatory and language skills and in terms of the communicative style and speaki ng behaviors of their mothers. At preonset, the children who started t o stutter demonstrated a faster articulatory rate than those I who rem ained fluent. One year later, however, this difference was no longer s tatistically significant. The two groups of children did not differ in their linguistic skills at either of these time periods. Moreover, th e communicative style and speaking behaviors of the mothers of the chi ldren who later began to stutter did not differ from that of the mothe rs of children who did not either prior to or after the onset of stutt ering. This suggests that these variables did not contribute to the on set of stuttering or to its course. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.