Stuttering More Likely In Bilingual Children

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Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 10 Sep 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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Children are more likely to stutter and have more trouble losing the impediment if they are bilingual before the age of five, in comparison to children who speak only one language during this period, according to an article released on September 9, 2008 in Archives of Disease in Childhood, one of the BMJ Specialty journals.

To investigate the relationship between languages in early childhood and stuttering, scientists examined 317 children who were referred to clinics in the London area for stuttering between the ages of 8 and 10. All of them had lived in Greater London and had started school in the United Kingdom at the age of 4 or 5. These were compared to a group of non-stuttering controls. The childrens' care-takers were surveyed to find out about the language or languages spoken at home.

Of the 317 stuttering children, one-fifth of the children spoke another language other than English exclusively or in combination with English at home. Approximately 12% had to learn English, because one or more family members did not speak English at home. Of these 38 children, 15 spoke this other language before the age of 5, while the remaining 23 spoke both languages.

Of these stuttering children who spoke a language other than English fluently, 31 stuttered in both languages. Stuttering was recognized at about the age of 4.5 years. Four times as many boys stuttered as girls. In the group of non-stuttering children, it appeared that three-quarters were exclusive speakers of a language other than English, while one-quarter spoke two languages.

Of the children who either spoke only their native language at home or who spoke only English before the age of 5, over half had stopped stuttering at a reassessment at age 12. This recovery rate is higher than the one in four children who recovered after speaking two languages.

School performance did not appear to suffer between the stutterers and children who didn't stutter. The authors suggest that, for those children whose native language is not English, it may be beneficial to defer the time when they learn it. They say: "this reduces the chance of starting to stutter and aids the chances of recovery later in childhood."

The effects of bilingualism on stuttering during late childhood
P Howell, S Davis, R Williams
Arch Dis Child.
doi:10.1136/adc.2007.134114
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Written by Anna Sophia McKenney
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