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Updated: Aug 19, 2025
Examining Bilingual Language Control Using the Stroop Task
Published on: February 26, 2020
Complex response inhibition and cognitive flexibility in school-aged Cypriot-Greek-speaking children who stutter
Maria Paphiti1, Eira Jansson-Verkasalo1, Kurt Eggers1,2,3
1Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
Purpose:
Over the last few years, research findings have suggested limitations in executive function (EF) of children who stutter (CWS) with the evidence being more consistent in studies with preschoolers (3-6 years old) than in studies with school-aged children (6-12 years old). The purpose of the current study was to assess complex response inhibition and cognitive flexibility in school-aged CWS and their non-stuttering peers.
Methods:
Participants, 19 CWS (mean age = 7.58 years, range 6.08-9.17) and 19 age-and gender-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS; mean age = 7.58 years, range 6.08-9.33), completed a visual task consisting of three task blocks. Analyses were based on response times and error percentages during the different task blocks.
Results:
All participants showed expected performance-costs in task block comparisons targeting complex response inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Significant group differences were found in measures of cognitive flexibility with CWS performing slower compared to CWNS (p = 0.02). Additionally, significant block × group interactions demonstrated that CWS, compared to CWNS, slowed down more (i.e., higher performance-cost) under both complex response inhibition (p = 0.049) and cognitive flexibility task conditions (p = 0.04 for no-set-shifting and p = 0.02 for set-shifting).
Conclusion:
These results are in line with some of the previous findings in school-aged CWS and suggest that CWS present lower performance in complex response inhibition and cognitive flexibility task conditions when compared to their non-stuttering peers.
