Communication attitudes of Japanese school-age children who stutter

Kawai Norimune

Healey E. Charles

Nagasawa Taiko

Vanryckeghem Martine

Journal of Communication Disorders

Past research with the Communication Attitude Test (CAT) has shown it to be a valid and reliable instrument for assessing speech-associated attitude of children who stutter (CWS). However, in Japan, the CAT has not been used extensively to examine the communication attitude of CWS. The purpose of this study was to determine if a Japanese version of the CAT could differentiate between the communication attitude of Japanese elementary school CWS and children who do not stutter (CWNS). A Japanese translation of the 1991-revised version of the Communication Attitude Test-Revised (CAT-R) was used in this study. Eighty Japanese CWS and 80 gender- and grade levelmatched CWNS participated in the study. The results showed that CWS had a significantly more negative communication attitude than CWNS. Both CWS and CWNS in 1st grade showed significantly more positive communication attitudes than the same children in 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Furthermore, a link between stuttering severity and CWS’ communication attitude was found. Additional research is needed to confirm the results of current study, which indicate that the communication attitude of Japanese CWS becomes more negative as they get older.

The Communication Attitude Test

Attitude

Stuttering

Education [ 370 ]

eng

Elsevier Science INC

(c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[ISSN] 0021-9924

[DOI] 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2012.05.004

[NCID] AA00251389

[DOI] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2012.05.004