Brain response to errors in children who stutter.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Adults who stutter (AWS) often exhibit heightened social anxiety.
• It remains unclear if children who stutter (CWS) also experience elevated anxiety.
• Objective neurophysiological markers, like the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe), are linked to anxiety and have been found to be elevated in AWS.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if ERN and Pe are elevated in CWS compared to children who do not stutter (CWNS).
• To examine the relationship between ERN, age, and anxiety in CWS.
• To compare these neurophysiological responses and their associations in CWS and CWNS.

Main Methods:

• Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record brain activity in 24 CWS and 24 matched CWNS (aged 3-9 years) during a Go/No-Go task.
• Parent-reported anxiety and child-reported speech-associated attitudes were collected.
• Linear regression models analyzed the effects of age, group, and anxiety on ERN and Pe amplitudes.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in ERN or Pe amplitudes were found between CWS and CWNS.
• Larger ERN amplitudes were associated with older age in CWS, but not in CWNS, indicating potential differences in error monitoring development.
• The association between Pe amplitudes and parent-reported anxiety differed between groups; smaller Pe was linked to higher anxiety in CWNS, but not in CWS.
• No group differences were observed in anxiety levels or self-reported communication attitudes.

Conclusions:

• Overall brain responses to errors are comparable between CWS and CWNS.
• CWS demonstrate unique patterns in how error monitoring responses change with age and anxiety.
• Further research is needed to understand the role of these factors in persistent stuttering.