Preschool speech articulation and nonword repetition abilities may help predict eventual recovery or persistence of stuttering

• We studied clinical speech and language measures in preschool children who stutter.
• Groups were formed based eventual recovery or persistence in stuttering.
• Articulation scores were higher for the children who would eventually recover.
• Stronger nonword repetition abilities were associated with stuttering recovery.
• Likelihood prediction accuracy for recovery or persistence of stuttering was 74%.

PurposeIn preschool children, we investigated whether expressive and receptive language, phonological, articulatory, and/or verbal working memory proficiencies aid in predicting eventual recovery or persistence of stuttering.MethodsParticipants included 65 children, including 25 children who do not stutter (CWNS) and 40 who stutter (CWS) recruited at age 3;9–5;8. At initial testing, participants were administered the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language, 3rd edition (TACL-3), Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test, 3rd edition (SPELT-3), Bankson–Bernthal Test of Phonology-Consonant Inventory subtest (BBTOP-CI), Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998), and Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills-Revised (TAPS-R) auditory number memory and auditory word memory subtests. Stuttering behaviors of CWS were assessed in subsequent years, forming groups whose stuttering eventually persisted (CWS-Per; n = 19) or recovered (CWS-Rec; n = 21). Proficiency scores in morphosyntactic skills, consonant production, verbal working memory for known words, and phonological working memory and speech production for novel nonwords obtained at the initial testing were analyzed for each group.ResultsCWS-Per were less proficient than CWNS and CWS-Rec in measures of consonant production (BBTOP-CI) and repetition of novel phonological sequences (NRT). In contrast, receptive language, expressive language, and verbal working memory abilities did not distinguish CWS-Rec from CWS-Per. Binary logistic regression analysis indicated that preschool BBTOP-CI scores and overall NRT proficiency significantly predicted future recovery status.ConclusionResults suggest that phonological and speech articulation abilities in the preschool years should be considered with other predictive factors as part of a comprehensive risk assessment for the development of chronic stuttering.Educational objectives: At the end of this activity the reader will be able to: (1) describe the current status of nonlinguistic and linguistic predictors for recovery and persistence of stuttering; (2) summarize current evidence regarding the potential value of consonant cluster articulation and nonword repetition abilities in helping to predict stuttering outcome in preschool children; (3) discuss the current findings in relation to potential implications for theories of developmental stuttering; (4) discuss the current findings in relation to potential considerations for the evaluation and treatment of developmental stuttering.