Introduction Early intervention for stuttering is essential. When immediate treatment is not indicated, therapists often monitor stuttering over time. However, how such monitoring is implemented in daily practice has not been studied in-depth. Method 35 Belgian stuttering therapists completed a questionnaire addressing three questions: How do therapists monitor early stuttering? When do they end monitoring? When do they provide recommendations to parents, and which ones? Results Monitoring early stuttering varies significantly. Monitoring can be proactive (therapist-led, scheduled sessions, perceptual scale, recordings, parent course) or watchful (parents initiate contact if severity increases or negative speech attitudes develop). Monitoring targets stuttering development, child’s speech attitude, and parental concerns mainly through parent reports, supplemented by scales, observation, recordings, or additional assessment. Providing accurate information about stuttering is an integral component of monitoring. Parents are encouraged to listen attentively, observe, occasionally shadow speech, and make minor communication adjustments (recommendations that do not require supervision). Monitoring ends and treatment begins when secondary behaviors appear, child awareness increases, or parental concerns increase. Conclusion Despite the small sample size and the explorative nature of this study, this study demonstrated that a varied approach to monitoring early stuttering is taken in Belgium with clinical reasoning underpinning individual approaches, generally consistent with the limited existing guidance. These findings do not necessarily reflect best practice, but can be a starting point for more research in this area.
Purpose Social media platforms are influential online spaces for public discourse, including health-related discussions. This exploratory study examined how members of the Ghanaian Facebook community “Tell It All” expressed their beliefs about the causes of stuttering, management strategies, and their attitudes toward people who stutter. Method Using a search-based sampling approach, 12 positive hits out of 29 original user posts from 2021 to 2025 were selected for analysis. Data from 658 comments related to these 12 original posts were analyzed using a deductive-inductive qualitative content analysis approach. Results The descriptive analysis revealed that participants attributed the cause(s) of stuttering to behavioral (62%), biological (27%), psychological (6%), and supernatural (5%) factors. Management approaches suggested included self-management (42%), punitive measures (20%), medical interventions (14%), traditional and cultural remedies (13%), environmental avoidance (4%), religious healing (3%), wait-and-see (2%), and self-help groups (1%). Based on coding instances, Facebook users most frequently expressed supportive attitudes (77%), followed by mocking (17%) and stigmatizing (6%). Correspondingly, posts seeking advice or emotional support attracted the most user engagement (98%), including high percentages of emojis, “likes,” “cares,” and “sad,” whereas informational posts (2%) received fewer comments. Conclusions The current findings highlight the active role of social media as both a source of social support and a potential platform for the initiation and/or spreading of misconceptions about stuttering, underscoring the importance of targeted digital health literacy programs and inclusive online interventions.
PURPOSE:Appropriate assessment of the psychosocial aspects of people who stutter (PWS) is essential for providing effective treatment. However, in Japan, no systematic synthesis is currently available regarding the available self-report measures, the constructs they assess, and their psychometric properties. This study aimed to systematically summarize the self-report psychosocial scales designed for Japanese PWS, as well as the current state of their measurement constructs and psychometric properties. METHODS:Following the PRISMA guidelines, PubMed, PsycINFO, ICHUSHI Web, and CiNii Research were searched on December 6, 2025. Measurement constructs were classified according to the classification proposed by Johnson et al. (2023). The quality of the psychometric properties was assessed by two independent reviewers using the quality criteria proposed by Terwee et al. (2007). RESULTS:Of the 389 records initially retrieved, seven articles validating six scales were included. Regarding the measurement constructs, all six scales (100.0%) assessed the "impact of stuttering" and two scales (33.3%) assessed "speech satisfaction" or "anxiety", whereas no scales measuring "communication attitudes" were identified. In the quality assessment of psychometric properties, positive ratings ("+") were infrequent, accounting for only three of the 54 ratings (5.6%), and "no information on validation" was the most common rating. CONCLUSIONS:Although self-report scales for psychosocial aspects of Japanese PWS exist, the coverage of target populations and measurement constructs is limited, and the verification of psychometric properties remains insufficient. Future research must address clinical needs by appropriately validating unverified properties and promoting knowledge sharing among support providers.
This study explored how people who stutter define and experience recovery, aiming to understand what it means to "live effectively with stuttering" and to evaluate personal narratives as client-based evidence. Using narrative inquiry and thematic analysis, 30 publicly available recovery narratives from SLPs who stutter were analyzed. Narratives were drawn from ASHA convention panels (1996-2019) and examined holistically to identify shared themes and insights. Six themes captured the core dimensions of recovery: (1) the emotional and cognitive work of acceptance, (2) claiming voice through disclosure and visibility, (3) the lifelong and nonlinear nature of living with stuttering, (4) challenging dominant fluency-centered paradigms, (5) the healing power of relationships, and (6) therapy as a co-narrative process. Participants emphasized identity, resilience, and communicative agency over fluency. For this population, living effectively with stuttering was defined not by producing fluency, but by empowerment, authenticity, and connection. These narratives support a paradigm shift toward narrative-informed, client-centered therapy that values lived experience as valid clinical evidence.
