Sympathetic arousal of young children who stutter during a stressful picture naming task

• Sympathetic arousal of CWS and CWNS was measured at a stressful picture-naming task.
• Three-year-old CWS had greater sympathetic arousal than CWNS peers during the task.
• Physiological associates of emotional reactivity differentiate CWS from CWNS at task.
• Emotional processes might be related to the trait of childhood stuttering.

PurposeThe purpose of the current study was to investigate sympathetic arousal of young children who do and do not stutter during a stressful picture-naming task under instructions to name pictures as rapidly as possible.MethodThirty-seven young children who stutter (CWS) and 39 young children who do not stutter (CWNS) served as participants. Dependent measures consisted of tonic skin conductance during a pretask baseline, a stress-inducing rapid picture-naming task, and post-picture-naming task condition.ResultsFindings indicated that, when chronological age was not taken into account, there was no between-group difference in tonic skin conductance level. When age was taken into account, however, there was a significant talker group × age group interaction, with follow-up analyses indicating that 3-year-old CWS exhibited significantly higher sympathetic arousal than their CWNS peers, and their 4-year-old CWNS peers.ConclusionsFindings were taken to be consistent with non-physiological results indicating an association between emotional processes and childhood stuttering. This association, at least for this cross-sectional study of tonic skin conductance level (SCL) during a picture-naming task, was moderated by children's chronological age. Such developmental differences may be associated with various processes, for example, attention, cognition, or physiology, or some combination of two or more of these processes. Future empirical study of these processes in young CWS and CWNS may profit from longitudinal measurement of converging lines of evidence from behavioral, parent and psychophysiological indexes of emotional reactivity and regulation.Educational Objectives: After reading this article, the reader will be able to: (a) discuss salient findings in the literature regarding the association between emotional processes and childhood stuttering; (b) discuss sympathetic arousal, and how skin conductance is used to measure it; and (c) discuss the role of chronological age in the association between emotion and stuttering in young children.