Electrodermal Activity of Preschool-Age Children Who Stutter During a Child-Friendly Stroop Paradigm

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Developmental psychology
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• Stuttering is a complex disorder affecting speech fluency.
• Understanding the physiological underpinnings of stuttering in young children is crucial for early intervention.
• Emotional reactivity and sympathetic activation are potential factors influencing stuttering.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if children who stutter (CWS) exhibit different emotional reactivity than children who do not stutter (CWNS) during a child-friendly Stroop task.
• To investigate if the Stroop task serves as a significant physiological stressor compared to a control task.

Main Methods:

• Electrodermal response (EDR) occurrence frequency and amplitude were measured in 15 preschool-age CWS and 22 CWNS.
• Participants completed a day-night Stroop task and a speech-language control task.
• Physiological data were collected during pretask baselines, task performance, and post-task periods.

Main Results:

• The day-night Stroop task did not elicit significantly different physiological arousal (EDR) between CWS and CWNS compared to a control task.
• No significant differences in EDR measures were found between CWS and CWNS during the tasks.
• CWS showed significantly greater EDR amplitudes during both the control task baseline and the Stroop task baseline compared to CWNS.

Conclusions:

• Preschool-age CWS may have a predisposition for heightened sympathetic activity even before engaging in tasks.
• This heightened baseline sympathetic activation in CWS warrants consideration in understanding developmental stuttering.
• The child-friendly Stroop task, as implemented, was not a significant stressor for eliciting differential psychophysiological responses.