Temperament and the Impact of Stuttering in Children Aged 8–14 Years
Publication: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 64, Number 2
Pages 417-432
Abstract
Purpose
The goal of this study was to evaluate possible associations between child- and mother-reported temperament, stuttering severity, and child-reported impact of stuttering in school-age children who stutter.
Method
Participants were 123 children who stutter (94 boys and 29 girls) who were between 9;0 and 14;10 (years;months) and their mothers. Temperament was assessed with the revised child and parent version of the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire–Revised (Ellis & Rothbart, 2001). The Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (Yaruss & Quesal, 2006) was used to evaluate the stuttering impact.
Results
Child- and mother-reported Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire–Revised temperament factors correlated moderately. No statistically significant associations were found between temperament and stuttering severity. The temperament factors of Surgency (both child- and mother-reported) and Negative Affect (only child-reported) correlated moderately with the Overall Impact and several subsections (i.e., Speaker's Reactions, Daily Communication, and/or Quality of Life) of the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering.
Conclusions
More extraverted and less fearful/shy children experience a lower overall impact of their stuttering. Children with higher levels of irritability and frustration experience a higher overall impact of their stuttering. Since children's ratings of temperament were more sensitive to these associations than mothers, this study supports the inclusion of child-reported temperament questionnaires in future research.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Achenbach, T. M., McConaughy, S. H., & Howell, C. T. (1987). Child/adolescent behavioral and emotional problems: Implications of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity. Psychological Bulletin, 101(2), 213–232.
Ahadi, S. A., & Rothbart, M. K. (2014). Temperament, development, and the Big Five. In R. P. Martin (Eds.), The developing structure of temperament and personality from infancy to adulthood (pp. 189–208). Psychology Press.
Alm, P. A. (2014). Stuttering in relation to anxiety, temperament, and personality: Review and analysis with focus on causality. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 40, 5–21.
Ambrose, N. G., Yairi, E., Loucks, T. M., Seery, C. H., & Throneburg, R. (2015). Relation of motor, linguistic and temperament factors in epidemiologic subtypes of persistent and recovered stuttering: Initial findings. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 45, 12–26.
Anderson, J. D., Pellowski, M. W., Conture, E. D., & Kelly, E. M. (2003). Temperamental characteristics of young children who stutter. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 1221–1233.
Arndt, J., & Healey, E. C. (2001). Concomitant disorders in school-age children who stutter. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 32(2), 68–78.
Bates, J. E., & Bayles, K. (1984). Objective and subjective components in mothers' perceptions of their children from age 6 months to 3 years. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 30, 111–130.
Bates, J. E., Schermerhorn, A. C., & Goodnight, J. A. (2010). Temperament and personality through the life span. In R. M. Lerner, M. E. Lamb, & A. M. Freund (Eds.), The Handbook of Life‐Span development: Vol. 2: Social and emotional development. Wiley.
Bleek, B., Reuter, M., Yaruss, J. S., Cook, S., Faber, J., & Montag, C. (2012). Relationships between personality characteristics of people who stutter and the impact of stuttering on everyday life. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 37(4), 325–333.
Blood, G. W., Ridenour, V. J., Jr., Qualls, C. D., & Hammer, C. S. (2003). Co-occurring disorders in children who stutter. Journal of Communication Disorders, 36(6), 427–448.
Capaldi, D. M., & Rothbart, M. K. (1992). Development and validation of an early adolescent temperament measure. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 12(2), 153–173.
Carey, W. B., & McDevitt, S. C. (1978). Revision of the infant temperament questionnaire. Pediatrics, 61(5), 735–739.
Choi, D., Conture, E. G., Walden, T. A., Lambert, W. E., & Tumanova, V. (2013). Behavioral inhibition and childhood stuttering. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 38(2), 171–183.
Choi, D., Conture, E. G., Walden, T. A., Jones, R. M., & Kim, H. (2016). Emotional diathesis, emotional stress, and childhood stuttering. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(4), 616–630.
Cloninger, C. R., Cloninger, K. M., Zwir, I., & Keltikangas-Järvinen, L. (2019). The complex genetics and biology of human temperament: A review of traditional concepts in relation to new molecular findings. Translational Psychiatry, 9, 290.
Conture, E. G. (2001). Stuttering: Its nature, diagnosis and treatment. Allyn & Bacon.
Cook, F., & Botterill, W. (2005). Family-based approach to therapy with primary school children: ‘Throwing the ball back.’ In R. Lees & C. Star (Eds.), The treatment of stuttering in the young school-aged child (pp. 81–107). Wiley.
Craig, A., & Tran, Y. (2006). Fear of speaking: Chronic anxiety and stammering. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 12(1), 63–68.
Eggers, K. (2012). Temperamental characteristics of children with developmental stuttering: From parent questionnaire to neuropsychological paradigms. [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, and Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands. https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/359447/1/Thesis_Eggers_drukproef.pdf
Eggers, K. (2017, September). Working with temperament styles with children who stutter and their families. Preconference workshop presented at the Oxford Dysfluency Conference, Oxford.
Eggers, K., De Nil, L., & Van den Bergh, B. (2009). Factorial temperament structure in stuttering, voice disordered, and normal speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 1610–1622.
Eggers, K., De Nil, L., & Van den Bergh, B. (2010). Temperament dimensions in stuttering and typically developing children. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 35(4), 355–372.
Eggers, K., De Nil, L., & Van den Bergh, B. (2018). Exogenously triggered response inhibition in developmental stuttering. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 56, 33–43.
Eichorn, N., Pirutinsky, S., & Marton, K. (2019). Effects of different attention tasks on concurrent speech in adults who stutter and fluent controls. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 61, 105714.
Ellis, L. K. (2002). Individual differences and adolescent psychological development [Unpublished doctoral dissertation] . University of Oregon.
Ellis, L. K., & Rothbart, M. (2001). Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire–Revised (EAT-R). Poster presented at the 2001 Biennal Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.
Embrechts, M., Ebben, H., Franke, P., & van de Poel, C. (2000). Temperament: A comparison between children who stutter and children who don't stutter. In H. G. Bosshardt, J. S. Yaruss, & H. F. M. Peters (Eds.), Proceedings of the third world congress on fluency disorders: Theory, research, treatment, and self-help (pp. 557–562). University of Nijmegen Press.
Evans, D. E., & Rothbart, M. K. (2007). Development of a model for adult temperament. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(4), 868–888.
Garcia, D., & Moradi, S. (2011). Adolescents' temperament and character: A longitudinal study on happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13, 1–16.
Garrison, W. T., Biggs, D., & Williams, K. (1990). Temperament characteristics and clinical outcomes in young children with diabetes mellitus. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 31(7), 1079–1088.
Gartstein, M. A., & Rothbart, M. K. (2003). Studying infant temperament via the revised infant behavior questionnaire. Infant Behavior & Development, 26(1), 64–86.
Goldsmith, H. H. (1996). Studying temperament via construction of the toddler behavior assessment questionnaire. Child Development, 67(1), 218–235.
Goldsmith, H. H., & Rothbart, M. K. (1991). Contemporary instruments for assessing early temperament by questionnaire and in the laboratory. In A. Angleitner & J. Strelau (Eds.), Explorations in temperament: International perspectives on theory and measurement (pp. 249–272). Plenum.
Grills, A. E., & Ollendick, T. H. (2002). Issues in parent–child agreement: The case of structured diagnostic interviews. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 5, 57–83.
Haitani, T., & Kumano, H. (2016). The relationship between attentional function and stuttering severity in adults who stutter. Japan Journal of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, 57(2), 217–226.
Harley, J. (2015). Bridging the gap between cognitive therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 193, 131–140.
Harper, F. W. K., Goodlett, B. D., Trentacosta, C. J., Albrecht, T. L., Taub, J. W., Phipps, S., & Penner, L. A. (2014). Temperament, personality, and quality of life in pediatric cancer patients. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 39(4), 459–468.
Hu, J., & Gruber, K. J. (2008). Positive and negative affect and health functioning indicators among older adults with chronic illnesses. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 29(8), 895–911.
IBM Corp. (2017). IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0. IBM Corp.
Johnson, K. N., Walden, T. A., Conture, E. G., & Karrass, J. (2010). Spontaneous regulation of emotions in preschool children who stutter: Preliminary findings. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53(6), 1478–1495.
Jones, R., Choi, D., Conture, E., & Walden, T. (2014). Temperament, emotion, and childhood stuttering. Seminars in Speech and Language, 35(2), 114–131.
Kagan, J. (1998). Biology and the child. In W. Damon & N. Eisenberg (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology. Volume 3: Social, emotional and personality development (pp. 177–235). Wiley.
Karrass, J., Walden, T. A., Conture, E. G., Graham, C. G., Arnold, H. S., Hartfield, K. N., & Schwenk, K. A. (2006). Relation of emotional reactivity and regulation to childhood stuttering. Journal of Communication Disorders, 39(6), 402–423.
Kefalianos, E., Onslow, M., Block, S., Menzies, R., & Reilly, S. (2012). Early stuttering, temperament and anxiety: Two hypotheses. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 37(3), 151–163.
Kefalianos, E., Onslow, M., Packman, A., Vogel, A., Pezic, A., Mensah, F., Conway, L., Bavin, E., Block, S., & Reilly, S. (2017). The history of stuttering by 7 years of age: Follow-up of a prospective community cohort. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(10), 2828–2839.
Kefalianos, E., Onslow, M., Ukoumunne, O. C., Block, S., & Reilly, S. (2014). Stuttering, temperament, and anxiety: Data from a community cohort ages 2–4 years. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57(4), 1314–1322.
Kefalianos, E., Onslow, M., Ukoumunne, O. C., Block, S., & Reilly, S. (2017). Temperament and early stuttering development: Cross-sectional findings from a community cohort. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(4), 772–784.
Kelman, E., & Nicholas, A. (2020). Palin parent–child interaction therapy for early childhood stammering. Routledge.
Kelman, E., & Wheeler, S. (2015). Cognitive behaviour therapy with children who stutter. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 193, 165–174.
Kitamura, T., Ohashi, Y., Minatani, M., Haruna, M., Murakami, M., & Goto, Y. (2015). Disagreement between parents on assessment of child temperament traits. Pediatrics International, 57(6), 1090–1096.
Kraft, S. J., Ambrose, N., & Chon, H. C. (2014). Temperament and environmental contributions to stuttering severity in children: The role of effortful control. Seminars in Speech and Language, 35(2), 80–94.
Kraft, S. J., Lowther, E., & Beilby, J. (2019). The role of effortful control in stuttering severity in children: Replication study. American Journal of Speech, Language Pathology, 28(1), 14–28.
Kristal, J. (2005). The temperament perspective. Working with children's behavioral styles. Brookes.
Laskowska, A. (2018). Quality of life in cancer as a function of temperament, coping and posttraumatic stress disorder. Current Psychology. Advance online publication.
Lengua, L. J. (2003). Associations among emotionality, self-regulation, adjustment problems and positive adjustment in middle childhood. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(5), 595–618.
Lengua, L. J. (2006). Growth in temperament and parenting as predictors of adjustment during children's transition to adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 42(5), 819–832.
Lengua, L. J., & Long, A. C. (2002). The role of emotionality and self-regulation in the appraisal-coping process: Tests of direct and moderating effects. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 23(4), 471–493.
Lucey, J., Evans, D., & Maxfield, N. D. (2019). Temperament in adults who stutter and its association with stuttering frequency and quality-of-life impacts. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62(8), 2691–2702.
Majdandžić, M., van den Boom, D. C., & Heesbeen, D. G. M. (2008). Peas in a pod: Biases in the measurement of sibling temperament? Developmental Psychology, 44(5), 1354–1368.
Mangelsdorf, S. C., Schoppe, S. J., & Burr, H. (2000). The meaning of parental reports: A contextual approach to the study of temperament and behavior problems in childhood. In V. Molfese & D. L. Mofese (Eds.), Temperament and personality development across the life span (pp. 121–140). Erlbaum.
Manning, W. H. (2010). Clinical decision making in the diagnosis and treatment of fluency disorders (3rd ed.). Delmar.
McManis, M. H., Kagan, J., Snidman, N. C., & Woodward, S. A. (2002). EEG asymmetry, power, and temperament in children. Deviant Psychobiology, 41(2), 169–177.
Mervielde, I., & De Pauw, S. S. W. (2015). Models of child temperament. In M. Zentner & R. L. Shiner (Eds.), Handbook of temperament (pp. 21–40). Guilford.
Moreira, P. A. S., Cloninger, C. R., Dinis, L., Sá, L., Oliveira, J. T., Dias, A., & Oliveira, J. (2015). Personality and well-being in adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. Article 1494.
Nicholas, A. (2015). Solution focused brief therapy with children who stutter. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 193, 209–216.
Ntourou, K., Conture, E. G., & Walden, T. A. (2013). Emotional reactivity and regulation in preschool-age children who stutter. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 38(3), 260–274.
Reardon-Reeves, N., & Yaruss, J. S. (2013). School-age stuttering therapy: A practical guide. Stuttering Therapy Resources, Incorporated.
Riley, G. D. (2009). Stuttering Severity Instrument for Children and Adults–Fourth Edition. Pro-Ed.
Rothbart, M. K. (2011). Becoming who we are: Temperament and personality in development. Guilford.
Rothbart, M. K. (2015). Advances in temperament: History, concepts and measures. In M. Zentner & L. N. Shiner (Eds.), Handbook of temperament (pp. 3–20). Guilford.
Rothbart, M. K., Derryberry, D., & Hershey, K. (2000). Stability of temperament in childhood: Laboratory infant assessment to parent report at seven years. In V. J. Molfese & D. L. Molfese (Eds.), Temperament and personality: Development across the life span. Erlbaum.
Rothbart, M. K., Ahadi, S. A., Hershey, K. L., & Fisher, P. (2001). Investigation of temperament at three to seven years: The Children's Behavior Questionnaire. Child Development, 72(5), 1394–1408.
Rothbart, M. K., & Bates, J. E. (1998). Temperament. In W. Damon & N. Eisenberg (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology. Volume 3: Social, emotional and personality development (pp. 105–176). Wiley.
Rueda, M. R., & Rothbart, M. K. (2009). The influence of temperament on the development of coping: The role of maturation and experience. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 124, 19–31.
Salhofer-Polanyi, S., Friedrich, F., Löffler, S., Rommer, P. S., Gleiss, A., Engelmaier, R., Leutmezer, F., & Vyssok, B. (2018). Health-related quality of life in multiple sclerosis: Temperament outweighs EDSS. BMC Psychiatry, 18, 143.
Sanmartin, R., Inglés, C. J., Vicent, M., Gonzálvez, C., Díaz-Herrero, A., & García Fernández, J. M. (2018). Positive and negative affect as predictors of social functioning in Spanish children. PLOS ONE, 13(8), e0201698.
Saudino, K. J. (2003). Parent ratings of infant temperament: Lessons from twin studies. Infant Behavior and Development, 26(1), 100–107.
Saudino, K. J. (2005). Behavioral genetics and child temperament. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 26(3), 214–223.
Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (1992). Effects of optimism on psychological and physical well-being: Theoretical overview and empirical update. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 16, 201–228.
Semel, E., Wiig, E. H., & Secord, W. A. (2003). Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Fourth Edition (CELF-4). NCS Pearson.
Skinner, E. A., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2007). The development of coping. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 119–144.
Slabach, E. H., Morrow, J., & Wachs, T. D. (1991). Questionnaire measurement of infant and child temperament: Current status and future directions. In A. Angleitner & J. Strelau (Eds.), Explorations in temperament: International perspectives on theory and measurement (pp. 205–234). Plenum.
Stallard, P. (2019). Think good, feel good: A cognitive behavioural therapy workbook for children and young people. Wiley.
Starkweather, C. W. (2002). The epigenesis of stuttering. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 27(4), 269–288.
Smith, A., & Weber, C. (2017). How stuttering develops: The multifactorial dynamic pathways theory. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(9), 2483–2505.
Strelau, J. (1998). Temperament: A psychological perspective. Plenum Press.
Vaughn, B. E., Taraldson, B. J., Cuchton, L., & Egeland, B. (2002). The assessment of infant temperament: A critique of the Carey infant temperament questionnaire. Infant Behavior & Development, 25(1), 98–112.
Vilhena, E., Pais-Ribeiro, J., Silva, I., Cardoso, H., & Mendonça, D. (2014). Predictors of quality of life in portuguese obese patients: A structural equation modeling application. Journal of Obesity, 2014, 1–9.
Walker, K. L., Ammaturo, D. A., & Wright, K. (2017). Are we assessing temperament appropriately? The Emotionality Activity Sociability and Impulsivity (EASI) temperament scale: A systematic psychometric review. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 58(4), 316–332.
Wiig, E. H., Semel, E., & Secord, W. A. (2013). Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Fifth Edition (CELF-5). NCS Pearson.
Yaruss, J. S., & Quesal, R. W. (2006). Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES): Documenting multiple outcomes in stuttering treatment. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 31(2), 90–115.
Yaruss, J. S., & Quesal, R. W. (2008). OASES: Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering: Teenagers. Pearson Assessments.
Zengin-Bolatkale, H., Conture, E. G., Key, A. P., Walden, T. A., & Jones, R. M. (2018). Cortical associates of emotional reactivity and regulation in childhood stuttering. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 56, 81–99.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 64 • Number 2 • February 2021
Pages: 417-432
PubMed: 33465312
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
History
- Received: Feb 27, 2020
- Revised: May 25, 2020
- Accepted: Oct 21, 2020
- Published online: Jan 19, 2021
- Published in issue: Feb 17, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Article Metrics
View all metricsCitations
Download article citation data for:
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.
Citing Literature
- Einas Alharbi, Sally Hewat, Joanne Walters, Rachael Unicomb, The experiences of adolescents who stutter: a scoping review, Speech, Language and Hearing, 10.1080/2050571X.2024.2429899, 28, 1, (2025).
- Molly Jacobs, Hope Gerlach-Houck, Patrick Briley, Differential Impacts of Anticipated Success on Employment Outcomes Among Adults Who Stutter, American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 10.1044/2024_AJSLP-24-00202, 34, 1, (246-260), (2024).
- Anna Hearne, Anna Miles, Emily Clarke, Stephanie Brasell, Eleanor Divers, Angel Tong, Simone Wielenga, Developing a stakeholder led stuttering resource for teachers in New Zealand, Speech, Language and Hearing, 10.1080/2050571X.2024.2330200, 28, 1, (2024).
- Bridget M. Walsh, Hannah Grobbel, Sharon L. Christ, Seth E. Tichenor, Katelyn L. Gerwin, Exploring the Relationship Between Resilience and the Adverse Impact of Stuttering in Children, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00012, 66, 7, (2278-2295), (2023).
- Ryan A. Millager, Mary S. Dietrich, Robin M. Jones, Behavioral and cognitive-affective features of stuttering in preschool-age children: Regression and exploratory cluster analyses, Journal of Fluency Disorders, 10.1016/j.jfludis.2023.105972, 76, (105972), (2023).
- Mary Weidner, Katarzyna Węsierska, Hana Laciková, Hilda Sønsterud, Signhild Skogdal, Kristin Åmodt, Kathleen Scaler‑Scott, Craig Coleman, Personal Appraisals of Support from the Perspective of Polish, Slovak, and American Children Who Stutter, Logopaedica Lodziensia, 10.18778/2544-7238.06.18, 6, (279-295), (2022).
- Seth E. Tichenor, Bridget M. Walsh, Katelyn L. Gerwin, J. Scott Yaruss, Emotional Regulation and Its Influence on the Experience of Stuttering Across the Life Span, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00467, 65, 7, (2412-2430), (2022).
- Kurt Eggers, Sharon K. Millard, Elaine Kelman, Temperament, anxiety, and depression in school-age children who stutter, Journal of Communication Disorders, 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2022.106218, 97, (106218), (2022).
- Jeong Min Lee, Nelson Roy, Albert Park, Harlan Muntz, Sean M. Redmond, Marshall Smith, Self-regulation in children with vocal fold nodules: A multilevel analysis, Journal of Communication Disorders, 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2022.106203, 97, (106203), (2022).
- Sarah Delpeche, Sharon Millard, Elaine Kelman, The role of temperament in stuttering frequency and impact in children under 7, Journal of Communication Disorders, 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2022.106201, 97, (106201), (2022).
View Options
Sign In Options
ASHA member? If so, log in with your ASHA website credentials for full access.
Member Login