Well-Being of Children With Stuttering and Autism: A First Glance

It is documented that children who stutter, as well as children with autism, may experience diminished well-being relative to children without these conditions. In contrast, almost nothing is documented about well-being of children living with both conditions, most likely because such children are relatively rare and thus challenging to study as a group. The study's aim was to begin documenting well-being factors related to quality of life in children who both stutter and have autism by evaluating how parents/guardians characterized their children on a brief questionnaire administered within the United States over 16 years.

Data collected on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) of the National Health Interview Survey between the years 2001-2007 and 2010-2018 were analysed. Six SDQ questions asked parents/guardians to rate their children on aspects of well-being that can impact quality of life, including emotional symptoms, peer relationships, hyperactive behaviour, and overall conduct. Participants were grouped into children who stutter but do not have autism (CWS, n = 1999), children with autism who do not stutter (CWA, n = 1467), children who both stutter and have autism (CWSA, n = 204), and children with neither condition (CNC, n = 126 221). Demographic variables (age, biological sex, race, ethnicity, maternal education) and presence of co-occurring conditions were compared between groups. Ordinal logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) of reporting increased behavioural difficulty, worry, unhappiness, difficulty getting along with other children, attentional difficulty, and the impact of such difficulties on overall conduct in CWS, CWA, and CWSA relative to CNC, controlling for demographic variables and presence of co-occurring conditions.

Relative to CNC, the odds of reporting difficulty in all six domains were greatest for CWSA, followed by CWA and then CWS. Based on rankings of ORs, conduct problems in CWSA appear to be driven by increased difficulty getting along with other children, followed by increased worry, attentional difficulty, unhappiness, and behavioural difficulty.

Results have implications for informing additional research on quality of life in CWSA, including the need to better understand peer relationships, emotional, attentional, and behavioural challenges faced by CWSA. Additional research is also needed to characterize the quality of life in CWSA beyond the small number of dimensions probed by the SDQ. Clinically, results of this study point to a need to prioritize support for CWSA in domains of peer relationships, emotion, and attention, along with providing behavioural support.