Evaluating parents' reactions to Children's stuttering using a Persian version of reaction to Speech Disfluency Scale

Stuttering is one of the most common speech disorders with many negative effects on children and their parents. The parents play a very important role in the treatment and management of children's stuttering. The parents' reactions to children's stuttering are pivotal in the exacerbation or improvement of stuttering. The present study aimed to investigate the parents' reactions to their children's stuttering using the Persian version of Reaction to Speech Disfluency Scale (RSDS).

The present study was conducted in two stages; phase 1: translation and cultural adaptation of RSDS into Persian and phase 2: investigation of the reaction of parents to children's stuttering using the RSDS. The first phase of the study included the following steps, forward translation, backward translation, content validity, face validity, and reliability of the scale using internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The second phase of the study was to examine the reactions of 110 parents of 3-6-year-old children who stutter by using the RSDS. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.

The results of translation and cultural adaptation of the RSDS showed that the Persian version of RSDS has suitable validity. The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94) and the test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.98) were also appropriate for this scale. The most reactions of parents to children's stuttering were cognitive, emotional, and behavioral, respectively. The results of evaluating the maternal and paternal reactions separately indicated that the highest value of paternal reaction score was cognitive, behavioral and emotional reactions, respectively, while the highest value of maternal reaction score was cognitive, emotional and behavioral reactions, respectively. Differences between fathers and mothers were statistically significant only in emotional reaction subscale (P < 0.001). The mean overall score of the RSDS for all parents was 29, as well as 27.72 and 30.27 in fathers and mothers groups, respectively, but this differences between groups not statistically significant (P = 0.12). Comparing the scores between parents of boys and girls who stutter showed that the mean overall scores of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral subscales, and overall scores in the parents of girls who stutter was higher than in the parents of boys who stutter, and this difference was statistically significant in the emotional subscale and the overall score between the two groups (P < 0.05).

The parental cognitive and behavioral reactions to children's stuttering had the maximum and minimum frequency, respectively. The paternal reactions to their children's stuttering were different from maternal reactions. The parents of girls who stutter in all subscales had a greater reaction compared to the parents of boys who stutter. Given the importance of the reactions of parents to their children's stuttering, the results of the present study can help to complete the information of therapists and researchers in this field.