Do immigrants who stutter confront speech related anxiety in a foreign country?

Abstract

Purpose: The current study aimed at investigating the experience of immigrants who stutter in a foreign country. Materials and methods: A questionnaire tapping details about the immigrants handling various communicative situations in a first and second language was configured and used in the current study. A total of 14 participants were enrolled in the study. Participants were sub-grouped based on the severity by using Stuttering Severity Instruments, 4th Edition (SSI-4). The composite scores on SSI-4 including the physical concomitants were used for sub grouping. Results: The findings revealed that the amount of difficulty experienced by immigrants was directly proportional to the degree of stuttering. Participants had difficulty in communicating with boss and colleagues regardless of the language used. They experienced less difficulty while speaking in malls and courier persons. Participants who knew the native language Arabic could handle the situations better than individuals who did not know Arabic. Conclusion: Stuttering would impede social participation and would increase anxiety. This speech-related anxiety is known to increase when these individuals immigrate to foreign countries.

Keywords

• Emigrants
• Expatriate
• PWS
• Spoken-language
• Stuttering