1999 Volume 40 Issue 4 Pages 342-348
This study was designed to investigate which environmental factors influence onset of stuttering. Data were obtained for 885 three-year-old children through their parents, using questions on paper. Questions consisted of two scales for measuring the parent-child semantic relationship and the degree of child disfluency.
According to factor analysis, three factors-dominance, over-protection and acceptance were observed using the parent-child semantic relationship scale. We classfied the subjects into three groups (stuttering, high risk, nonstuttering) according to degree of disfluency, and compared the parent-child semantic relationship across the three groups. Results showed that for the two factors of dominance and over-protection, the higher the degree of disfluency, the higher were both factor levels. However, for the acceptance factor, no clear tendency was found across the three groups.
We concluded that when parents work on their children's speech with a dominant and over-protecting attitude, and fail to listen to their children talk, the degree of child disfluency increases.As a result, parents' attitude toward their children's speech becomes more dominant and over-protective, which brings on stuttering. Therefore, early intervention in the parent-child semantic relationship will work as a prevention for onset of stuttering.
