Personal Appraisals of Support from the Perspective of Polish, Slovak, and American Children Who Stutter

Abstract

Limited research exists about what children who stutter perceive to be helpful and unhelpful listener supports, and no known research exists cross‑culturally. Such information is nec­essary to better inform clinical intervention and public attitudes at large. This study sought to address that need by measuring listener preferences among children who stutter from diverse backgrounds. One‑hundred fifty‑one children who stutter from Poland, Slovakia, and the USA completed the child version of the Personal Appraisal of Support for Stuttering. Results were examined descriptively and compared cross‑culturally. Themes pertaining to very helpful and very unhelpful supports emerged across all groups. Many items fell in the neutral range, suggesting variability among individual speakers. Based on the groups examined, children who stutter primarily want listeners to be patient, to include them, and to not laugh when they are speaking. Other nuanced preferences un­derscore the importance of asking individuals about what they perceive to be helpful and un­helpful. Results of this study informed a listener guideline statement and an open‑access in­formational handout about how to be most supportive of children who stutter.

Keywords

• child
• the personal appraisal of support for stuttering
• support
• stuttering