Carey Brenda, Onslow Mark, O'Brian Sue
Australian Stuttering Research Centre, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Int J Speech Lang Pathol. 2021 Feb;23(1):48-56. doi: 10.1080/17549507.2020.1746399. Epub 2020 Apr 22.
The natural stuttering recovery rate by adulthood is high. Community cohort studies suggest a much lower rate during the first 18 months after onset, but this may be different for clinical cohorts of pre-school aged children. The present research and case presentations add to data reported by Franken et al. by investigating early natural recovery for a clinical cohort.
Participants were 16 pre-school children presenting to a clinic with stuttering onset 1-15 months earlier. The children were studied for a mean of 19.4 months (84.3 weeks) using parent report and clinician identification of stuttering from recorded conversations. The children received no treatment during the study. Data were obtained for each participant and are presented graphically.
Experienced speech-language pathologists detected stuttering in the recordings of 3 of 4 children identified as recovered by their parents. Only 1 of the 16 children (6.3%) was confirmed as recovered.
There is no reason to believe that the early natural recovery rate for clinically presenting children is different from community cohorts. Parent report of natural recovery during the pre-school years needs to be confirmed by clinician observation of the child's speech; otherwise, there is risk of harmful false negative identification. The present data support the Yairi et al. different recovery pathways for children who stutter.
成年期自然恢复流畅性的口吃患者比例较高。社区队列研究表明，发病后头18个月内的恢复率要低得多，但这对于学龄前临床队列儿童而言可能有所不同。本研究及病例报告通过调查临床队列的早期自然恢复情况，补充了弗兰肯等人报告的数据。
研究对象为16名学龄前儿童，他们在1 - 15个月前开始口吃，前来一家诊所就诊。通过家长报告以及临床医生根据录音对话对口吃的识别，对这些儿童进行了平均19.4个月（84.3周）的研究。在研究期间，这些儿童未接受任何治疗。获取了每位参与者的数据，并以图表形式呈现。
经验丰富的言语病理学家在家长认定已恢复流畅性的4名儿童中的3名儿童的录音中检测到了口吃。16名儿童中只有1名（6.3%）被确认为恢复。
没有理由认为临床就诊儿童的早期自然恢复率与社区队列不同。学龄前儿童自然恢复的家长报告需要通过临床医生对儿童言语的观察来确认；否则，存在有害的假阴性识别风险。目前的数据支持亚里等人提出的口吃儿童不同恢复途径的观点。
