Speech-associated attitudes: Stuttering, voice disordered, articulation disordered, and normal speaking children

Abstract

A Dutch version of the Communication Attitude Test (CAT-D) was administered to four groups of children: stutterers, those with voice disorders, those with articulation problems, and those whose speech was considered to be normal. The subjects ranged in age from 7 to 14 years. The speech-associated attitudes of the stuttering and the voice disordered children did not differ to a statistically significant extent. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between the test scores of the children with articulation disorders and their normal speaking peers. However, these latter two subject groups showed significantly fewer negative speech attitudes than did either the stuttering or the voice disordered subjects. The results indicate that the extent of negative speech-associated attitudes depends on the nature of the speech disorder.