Prevalence of anxiety disorders among children who stutter.

PURPOSE: Stuttering during adulthood is associated with a heightened rate of anxiety disorders, especially social anxiety disorder. Given the early onset of both anxiety and stuttering, this comorbidity could be present among stuttering children.

METHOD: Participants were 75 stuttering children 7-12 years and 150 matched non-stuttering control children. Multinomial and binary logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios for anxiety disorders, and two-sample t-tests compared scores on measures of anxiety and psycho-social difficulties.

RESULTS

Compared to non-stuttering controls, the stuttering group had six-fold increased odds for social anxiety disorder, seven-fold increased odds for subclinical generalized anxiety disorder, and four-fold increased odds for any anxiety disorder.

CONCLUSION

These results show that, as is the case during adulthood, stuttering during childhood is associated with a significantly heightened rate of anxiety disorders. Future research is needed to determine the impact of those disorders on speech treatment outcomes.