Stutter risk

22 September 2008

Bilingual children have a greater risk of stuttering than monolingual children, particularly if they do not wait until they start school to learn their second language, Professor Peter Howell from University College London and colleagues have found.

Their study provides evidence for the link between bilingualism and stuttering - long hypothesised but poorly supported by data - and also shows that bilingual stutterers tend to stutter in both languages they speak.

The researchers studied 317 children aged eight to 12 years who stuttered, looking at their stuttering history, school test results and stuttering recovery/persistence. Of the 38 children who used a language other than English at home, 23 spoke both English and the non-English (minority) language from birth. The remaining 15 learned English only once they started school.

The results suggest that the risk of stuttering can be reduced if children who peak a minority language at home wait until they are five to start learning English. Deferring the time bilingual children learn English also improves the chance of recovering from a stutter later in childhood. School performance was not affected by whether a child had a stutter or not, nor did it depend on whether a bilingual child learned English alongside or after a minority language.

Image: Anthea Sieveking, Wellcome Images

References

Howell P et al. The effects of bilingualism on stuttering during late childhood. Arch Dis Child 2008 [Epub ahead of print].