Treleaven Shanley, Rubsam Saralyn, Sheppard Megan, Yaruss J Scott, Chang Soo-Eun
Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University, East Lansing.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2025 May 8;68(5):2218-2235. doi: 10.1044/2025_JSLHR-24-00501. Epub 2025 Apr 23.
Investigating stuttering recovery rates can be challenging, as recovery status can change based on self-report, later recovery, or relapse. In this study, we contacted previous child participants from our longitudinal studies (now older children to young adults) who were originally assigned persistence/recovery status guided by clinician and caregiver reports only. Their stuttering status as adolescents and young adults was re-evaluated based on currently assessed clinician and caregiver reports, observable stuttering severity assessments, and self-reports.
Seventy-nine participants were contacted based on their current age and time since their last longitudinal study visit (> 2 years). Of these, 23 participated in this follow-up investigation. Participants and caregivers completed follow-up questionnaires, and participants' speech samples were recorded for offline stuttering disfluency ratings by a speech-language pathologist.
When considering participant and caregiver reports as well as clinician report based on stuttering severity ratings, recovery status changed for nine of the 23 participants (39.13%). All nine self-identified as recovered, although four of the nine were judged to exhibit very mild stuttering. Five of the nine were viewed to be late recovery cases, occurring after the conclusion of the prior longitudinal study. The presence of stuttering behaviors was often reported consistently across clinician and participant/caregiver reports (the basis for "persistence" judgments by the clinician), but in eight cases (34.78%), participants did not self-identify as stutterers despite reported presence of stuttering.
Our results highlight the importance of assessing stuttering beyond early childhood to examine recovery rates. Furthermore, self-reports on stuttering status reveal that the concept of recovery is nuanced: The presence of overt stuttering does not necessarily correlate with self-identification of stuttering. These findings have implications on how best to define stuttering persistence and recovery for future research and clinical practice.
研究口吃恢复率可能具有挑战性，因为恢复状态可能会根据自我报告、后期恢复或复发而发生变化。在本研究中，我们联系了之前纵向研究中的儿童参与者（现在已从大龄儿童成长为年轻人），他们最初的持续/恢复状态仅由临床医生和照顾者的报告来判定。基于当前评估的临床医生和照顾者报告、可观察到的口吃严重程度评估以及自我报告，重新评估了他们在青少年和青年时期的口吃状态。
根据参与者当前的年龄以及自上次纵向研究访问以来的时间（超过2年）联系了79名参与者。其中，23名参与了此次随访调查。参与者和照顾者完成了随访问卷，并录制了参与者的语音样本，以便言语病理学家进行离线口吃不流畅性评级。
在综合考虑参与者和照顾者报告以及基于口吃严重程度评级的临床医生报告时，23名参与者中有9名（39.13%）的恢复状态发生了变化。这9名参与者均自我认定已康复，尽管其中4名被判定仍表现出非常轻微的口吃。这9名中有5名被视为后期恢复病例，发生在之前纵向研究结束之后。临床医生和参与者/照顾者的报告中对口吃行为的存在情况通常有一致的描述（这是临床医生做出“持续”判断的依据），但在8个案例中（34.78%），尽管报告称存在口吃，但参与者并未自我认定为口吃者。
我们的研究结果凸显了在幼儿期之后对口吃进行评估以检查恢复率的重要性。此外，关于口吃状态的自我报告表明，恢复的概念是细微的：明显口吃的存在并不一定与口吃的自我认定相关。这些发现对于如何最好地定义口吃的持续和恢复以用于未来研究和临床实践具有启示意义。
