Temperament and Early Stuttering Development: Cross-Sectional Findings From a Community Cohort

Purpose The purpose of this study was to ascertain if there is an association between stuttering severity and behaviors and the expression of temperament characteristics, including precursors of anxiety. Method We studied temperament characteristics of a prospectively recruited community cohort of children who stutter ( N = 173) at ages 3, 4, and 6 years using the Short Temperament Scale STS (Prior, Sanson, Smart & Oberklaid, 2000). Results Six of 131 statistical tests of association between stuttering severity and behaviors and temperament traits were statistically significant at the 5% level, which was no more than expected by chance alone. Conclusions On the basis of parent responses to the STS, preschoolers who exhibited different levels of stuttering severity and behaviors did not generally express temperament traits differently from one another. Stuttering severity and stuttering behaviors were not associated with the precursors of anxiety. Overall, taking multiple tests into consideration, results show little evidence of association between stuttering severity and temperament up to 4 years of age or between stuttering behaviors and temperament up to 6 years of age.