Abstract:
The question of whether people who stutter are generally more anxious than
people who do not stutter has not yet been resolved. One major methodological
barrier to determining whether differences exist has been the type of stuttering
sample used. Studies investigating anxiety levels of those who stutter have mostly
assessed people referred to stuttering therapy clinics, which is arguably a biased
sample. To date, no studies have been published that have measured the anxiety
levels of people who stutter in the community using random selection procedures.
Such a sample is more likely to be representative of the population of people who
stutter. The present study involved a random selection and telephone interview of
people in 4,689 households. The telephone respondent was given a description of
stuttering and asked if any person living in their household stuttered. If yes, a
number of corroborative questions were asked, and permission was requested to
tape the speech of the person believed to stutter over the telephone. A definite
case of stuttering was based on (a) a positive detection of stuttering from the tape
and (b) at least one of the corroborative questions supporting the diagnosis. A
total of 87 people were identified as definite cases of stuttering across all ages,
and 63 participants who were 15 years or older completed a trait anxiety
questionnaire over the telephone. Mean trait anxiety levels were significantly
higher than levels generally found in society, though differences were not large.
Implications of these results are discussed.
