Fluency and reading comprehension in students with and without stuttering.

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Developmental psychology
• Educational psychology

Background:

• Stuttering affects speech fluency in children.
• Reading comprehension is crucial for academic success.
• The relationship between stuttering, fluency, and reading comprehension requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare fluency parameters in spontaneous speech and reading between children who stutter and those who do not.
• To evaluate and compare reading comprehension in these two groups.
• To investigate the association between disfluency frequency and reading comprehension.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional and prospective study involving 30 school-age children (8-11 years) divided into stuttering and non-stuttering groups.
• Fluency evaluation of spontaneous speech and reading of expository and narrative texts.
• Reading comprehension assessment using standardized methods and statistical analysis (Mann-Whitney, Spearman's Coefficient).

Main Results:

• Children who stutter displayed more stuttering-like disfluencies and lower speech rate (words/syllables per minute).
• Children who stutter performed significantly lower on reading comprehension tasks compared to non-stuttering children.
• No significant association was found between the frequency of disfluencies and reading comprehension scores in either group.

Conclusions:

• School-age children who stutter demonstrate reading comprehension deficits compared to their fluent peers.
• The frequency of disfluencies does not appear to directly impact reading comprehension in school-age children.
• Interventions targeting reading comprehension improvement are recommended for children who stutter to mitigate academic consequences.