Cognitive Complexity as a Function of Speaker Role for Adult Persons Who Stutter

Abstract

Fransella (1972) was the first to suggest that a personal construct psychology approach to therapy with persons who stutter may be useful. She implicated reduced meaningfulness of the fluent speaker role as a primary maintenance factor of stuttering, even following initially successful behavioral treatment of the problem. Limited research has been performed, however, to confirm Fransella's hypothesis. This study investigated the “meaningfulness” of stutterer and fluent speaker roles for 29 persons who stutter through a text-based measure of the complexity of their construct systems associated with each role. As hypothesized, results indicated that persons who stuttered have a less differentiated or cognitively complex system of constructs for construing themselves in a fluent as opposed to stutterer role. These results support Fransella's hypothesis and suggest that constructivist interventions for enhancing the complexity of the construct systems of persons who stutter with respect to their fluent speaker role should be integrated into traditional treatments for stuttering.