Measures of psychological impacts of stuttering in young school-age children: A systematic review
Abstract
Purpose Recent research has shown that some school-age children who stutter may have speech-related anxiety. Given this, speech-language pathologists require robust measures to assess the psychological effects of stuttering during the school-age years. Accordingly, this systematic review aimed to explore available measures for assessing the psychological impacts of stuttering in young school-age children and to examine their measurement properties. Method The systematic search protocol was registered with PROSPERO (ID: 163181). Seven online databases, in addition to manual searching and screening of reference lists, were used to identify appropriate measures for the population of children who stutter aged 7-12 years. The first two authors independently assessed the measures using the quality appraisal tool described by Terwee et al. (2007). Results Despite the comprehensive search strategy, only six measures were identified for quality appraisal. No assessment tool was found to possess adequate measurement properties for the eight assessed domains: content validity, internal consistency, construct validity, reproducibility, reliability, responsiveness, floor and ceiling effects, and interpretability. No measure had clear evidence of responsiveness to clinical change. Based on the criterion defined by the Terwee et al. (2007) appraisal tool, the Communication Attitude Test and the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering for School-Age Children received the highest number of ratings in support of their measurement properties. Conclusions The results highlight a lack of available measures in this domain and poor practices in developing and testing measurement instruments. To ensure that clinicians and researchers are equipped with sound measures to meet the mental health needs of this vulnerable population, further research to establish resources is needed.
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Speaking in class is challenging for students who stutter.
“Speaking in class is challenging for students who stutter.”
From Speaking face-to-face with a virtual avatar to reduce anxiety in students who stutter: Tool development and pilot study results. (2026) · cites this paper as Jones et al., 2021
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- Authors
- Jones, M. L., Menzies, R. G., Onslow, M., Lowe, R., O'Brian, S., & Packman, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Technology Sydney (AU)
- Australian Stuttering Research Centre, Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia
- Venue
- Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
- Published
- 2021-06-04
- Volume
- 64
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1918-1928
- ISSN
- 1092-4388 (ISSN-L)
- 1558-9102
- OpenAlex
- W3163536075
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4
- FWCI
- 0.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Stuttering Research and Treatment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Voice and Speech Disorders
- Keywords
- stuttering, elementary school students, measurement properties, psychometric properties, child mental health
- MeSH terms
- Child, Humans, Psychological Tests, Schools, Speech, Stuttering, Reproducibility of Results
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