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Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
Published on: January 23, 2017
Prevalence of stuttering in African American preschoolers
Adele Proctor1, Ehud Yairi, Melissa C Duff
1Department of Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 901 South 6th Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. aproctor@uiuc.edu
Purpose:
In this study, the authors sought to determine the prevalence of stuttering in African American (AA) 2- to 5-year-olds as compared with same-age European Americans (EAs).
Method:
A total of 3,164 children participated: 2,223 AAs and 941 EAs. Data were collected using a 3-pronged approach that included investigators' individual interactions with each child, teacher identification, and parent identification of stuttering.
Results:
No statistically significant difference for stuttering was found between AA and EA children. Using the investigator and teacher method of identification, the prevalence of stuttering was 2.52% for the entire sample. For both racial groups, boys exhibited a higher prevalence of stuttering than girls. Of the 3 predictors (age, race, sex) of stuttering, only sex was a significant predictor.
Conclusions:
AA 2- to 5-year-olds are not overrepresented in the stuttering population for this age group. When data are combined for both racial groups, the prevalence of stuttering is 2.52%. More boys than girls stuttered in this sample of preschoolers.
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