Language Abilities of Children Who Stutter: A Meta-Analytical Review

Abstract

Purpose To identify, integrate, and summarize evidence from empirical studies of the language abilities of children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS). Method Candidate studies were identified through electronic databases, the tables of contents of speech-language journals, and reference lists of relevant articles and literature reviews. The 22 included studies met the following criteria: studied both children who did and did not stutter between ages 2;0 (years;months) and 8;0, and reported norm-referenced language measures and/or measures from spontaneous language samples amenable to effect size calculation. Data were extracted using a coding manual and were assessed by application of general and specialized analytical software. Mean difference effect size was estimated using Hedges’s g (Hedges, 1982). Results Findings indicated that CWS scored significantly lower than CWNS on norm-referenced measures of overall language (Hedges’s g = −0.48), receptive (Hedges’s g = −0.52) and expressive vocabulary (Hedges’s g = −0.41), and mean length of utterance (Hedges’s g = −0.23). Conclusions Present findings were taken to suggest that children’s language abilities are potentially influential variables associated with childhood stuttering.