Connecting stuttering measurement and management: II. Measures of cognition and affect

To the person who stutters, there are other experiences than the somatic ones of stuttered speech. These are experiences of cognition and affect: in other words, experiences of thought and emotion. For several reasons, it is quite difficult to determine and recommend core measures of cognition and affect for clinicians to consider using.

To catalogue some of the many instruments that may be regarded by clinicians as worthwhile for use in measuring cognition and affect in clinical practice.

The presentation of measures of cognition and affect is organized according to those that have appeared in recent clinical trials of stuttering during roughly the last decade, and those that have not featured in clinical trials.

Measures that have featured in the clinical trials literature might be looked on favourably, along with those for whom there are more than one data source in support. The various measures from the discipline of clinical psychology generally fall into the latter category. The notions of cognition and affect emerge from the discipline of clinical psychology, and therefore it makes sense to look to that discipline for measures of those constructs. Seeking such tools outside the discipline of speech pathology, especially those with established reliability and validity, seems to hold potential in contributing to one's understanding of affective and cognitive functioning in people who stutter.