A scoping review of the school-aged stuttering intervention literature

Abstract

We explore school-aged (6–14 years old) stuttering interventions for children who stutter (CWS) using a scoping review. Database searches were conducted (EBSCO host, PubMed, PsycINFO, Academic Search Premier, MEDLINE, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Health Source (consumer edition), Africa-wide Information, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL), Dissertation abstracts International, the Cochrane Library (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), 15 Cochrane Methodology Register, Education Resource Information Center, Google Scholar, manual searching using reference lists and gray literature) from the inception of the databases until June 2018. Ten school-aged stuttering intervention studies met the inclusion criteria of this study, which were conducted between 1982 and 2016. The 10 studies used quantitative pretest posttest designs with low to moderate quality, according to GRADE. ICF showed a dominance of interventions targeted and measured within the domain of body structures and function with treatment effects focused predominantly on traditional individualized speech fluency measures. Studies were conducted in Australia (n = 3), United States of America (n = 3), Canada (n = 2), Islamic Republic of Iran (n = 1) and South Africa (n = 1). The findings lead to the authors questioning knowledge production and its influence on evidence-based literature and practices.