Introduction: Emotion regulation is to be aware of emotions and
able to use them appropriately. This process includes the ability to observe,
assess, and change emotional reactions appropriate
to the circumstances of the environment (Eisenberg,
Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000). In the stuttering literature, there are a
number of studies that show children with stuttering have a variety of
difficulties with emotion regulation (Karrass etc., 2006; Johnson, Walden,
Conture, & Karrass, 2010; Arnold, Conture, Key, & Walden, 2011; Zengin-Bolatkale,
Conture, Key, Walden, & Jones, 2018). The aim of this study is to compare
emotion regulation of school age children with and without stuttering. Method: The study consists of 50
school-age children with (n=25) and without (n=25) stuttering between the ages
of 6 and 12. The participants are recruited from Anadolu University Speech and
Language Disorders Education, Research, and Therapy Center (DILKOM). Exclusion
criteria were having no psychiatric or neurological disorder, less than %3
stuttering rate and concomitant speech and language disorders. In the study,
Emotion Regulation Checklist, which was originally developed by Shields and
Cicchetti (1997) and adapted to Turkish by Kapçı, Uslu, Akgün and Acer (2009),
was used to collect data, in addition to the demographic information form. The
Emotion Regulation Checklist was completed by parents, and the demographic
information sheet was filled by speech and language therapists. The Emotion
Regulation Checklist is a 24-item form, composed of two sub-dimensions named
Emotional Lability/Negativity and Emotion Regulation. In the study, these two sub-dimensions
and the Composite Emotion Regulation score, which was obtained from total score
of these two sub-scales, were used. Statistical analyses were performed with
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 21 software.
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the data was not normally distributed,
therefore Mann-Whitney U test was performed to
compare the differences between emotion regulation scores of children with and
without stuttering. The effect sizes of Mann-Whitney U test results were
calculated with r = Z/√n formula (Fritz, Morris ve Richler, 2012). Results: The difference between
Emotional Lability/Negativity sub-dimension scores of children with and without
stuttering was found to be statistically significant. Emotional
Lability/Negativity scores of children with stuttering were higher than
children without stuttering (U = 180,500; z =-2,567, p <.05, r=-36).
Statistically significant difference was found between the Emotion Regulation
scores of the groups with and without stuttering (U = 206,000; z = -2,080, p
<.05, r = -. 29). The Emotion Regulation subdimension scores of children
with stuttering were significantly higher than children without stuttering, which
implies that, children with stuttering have lower emotional regulation. In
terms of the Composite Emotion Regulation score which is the sum of the scores
obtained from both sub-dimensions, statistically significant difference was
found between the groups with and without stuttering (U = 197,500, z = 2,235, p
<.05, r = -. 32). The Integrated Emotion Regulation scores of the stuttering
group were higher than the stuttering group, which shows that emotional
regulation abilities of children with stuttering were weaker than children
without stuttering. Effect sizes of the statistical difference between the groups
were found to be ranged from weak to moderate. Discussion: The results of the study showed that children with
stuttering had higher scores in the Emotion Regulation, Emotion Variability/Negation
sub-dimensions, and Composite Emotion Regulation than children without
stuttering. When these results were examined, it was observed that the mood
swings and anger reactions were more intense in the school-age stuttering group
than the non-stuttering group. It was seen that they have difficulty adjusting
adaptive emotions such as understanding emotions, empathy and cautiousness, and
in general, their emotion regulation skills are weaker. These results are in
line with the findings in the literature regarding emotion regulation skills of
preschool children (Karrass et al., 2006; Johnson et al., 2010; Arnold et al.,
2011). When assessing children with stuttering, it is important that language
and speech therapists make the necessary environmental arrangements considering
their clients’ emotion regulation skills. Collaboration with family and school
counselors during the therapy process will positively affect the emotion
regulation of the child. This is expected to increase the benefit obtained from
stuttering therapy.
Keywords
Stuttering, fluency disorder, emotion regulation, school-age, children
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