62 American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology • Vol. 7 • No. 4 November 1998 Research Evaluating Stuttering in Young Children: Diagnostic Data American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology • Vol. 7 • 1058-0360/98/0704-0062 © American Speech-Language-Hearing Association J. Scott Yaruss University of Pittsburgh, PA Lisa R. LaSalle University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire Edward G. Conture Vanderbilt University This study describes relationships between speech, language, and related behaviors exhib- ited during an initial diagnostic evaluation by 2- to 6-year-old children referred for evaluation of their speech and language development. These children were referred as a result of their par- ents’ concerns that they might be at risk for stuttering. Subjects were 100 children (85 boys and 15 girls; mean age = 54.7 months; SD = 12.2 months) who appeared to be representa- tive of the children that clinicians are likely to evaluate in a clinical setting. Analyses were based on a retrospective examination of de- tailed diagnostic records prepared during the diagnostic evaluations. Results indicated that children recommended for treatment exhibited significantly higher scores than children recom- mended for reevaluation or for neither treatment nor reevaluation on all measures of speech fluency except the duration of disfluencies (which approached, but did not reach, signifi- cance). Importantly, analyses also revealed significant behavioral overlaps between children in the three recommendation subgroups, sug- gesting that absolute referral criteria probably should not be used when making treatment recommendations. In addition, diagnostic test- ing revealed that a proportion of these children exhibited concomitant difficulties with language, phonology, or oral motor skills, suggesting that stuttering is not necessarily independent of other aspects of children’s speech and lan- guage development. Based on the distribution of children’s scores on a variety of measures in this relatively large database, benchmarks are presented that may provide clinicians with a means for comparing their own treatment rec- ommendations to those made by others. C onsiderable research on childhood stuttering has been conducted in recent years (see reviews in Bloodstein, 1995; Conture, 1990a, 1991), and the literature contains valuable information about the develop- ment of normal fluency (e.g., Bjerkan, 1980; Davis, 1940a, 1940b; Yairi, 1981, 1982) and stuttering (e.g., Andrews & Harris, 1964; Johnson & Associates, 1959; Ryan, 1992; St. Louis, Ruscello, & Lundeen, 1992; Yairi, 1997; Yairi, Ambrose, Paden, & Throneburg, 1996). Such research has clearly improved the clinical evaluation of childhood stuttering; however, diagnosing childhood stuttering is still less than an exact science (Conture, 1990a, 1990b, 1997; Conture & Caruso, 1987a; Costello & Ingham, 1984; Curlee, 1993; Curlee & Yairi, 1997; Manning, 1996; Silverman, 1996; Wall & Meyers, 1995; Yairi, Ambrose, Paden, & Throneburg, 1996). This is not surprising, given the fact that current models of stuttering (e.g., Smith & Kelly, 1997; Wall & Meyers, 1995) continue to emphasize the importance of assessing a wide variety of interacting psychosocial, psycholinguistic, and physiological variables when evaluating children who stutter. Furthermore, as Smith and Kelly have suggested, the relative influence of these variables, as well as the potential interactions between variables, may not be consistent across all children at risk for stuttering. The result is that clinicians are still less than certain about which variables should be examined in diagnostic evaluations. Certainly, many of the more salient variables to be considered relate to the observable characteristics of stuttering, such as the frequency, type, and duration of disfluencies at or near the onset of stuttering (e.g., Ambrose & Yairi, 1995; Bloodstein, 1960; Johnson, 1955; Johnson & Associates, 1959; Ryan, 1992; Throneburg & Yairi, 1994; Yairi, 1983; Yairi & Lewis, 1984; Zebrowski, 1991, Downloaded From: http://ajslp.pubs.asha.org/ by SRI Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, Roopa Nagarajan on 08/24/2015 Terms of Use: http://pubs.asha.org/ss/rights_and_permissions.aspx