LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:1 January 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Perspectives on Stuttering and Social Anxiety

Dr. Vandana.V.P., Ph.D.

Abstract

Speech is the central mechanism that supports daily communication with others and plays an important role in establishing and sustaining social relationships. It is the core factor in establishing and sustaining all academic and occupational links as well. Stuttering disrupts normal flow of speech and interferes with social interactions and quality of life. Disfluencies and secondary behaviors associated with stuttering can be socially disconcerting and individually frustrating. Consecutively this may hinder academic, occupational and social development. Anxiety might co-occur with stuttering as the social communicative interactions will be affected in a substantial manner. There has been increased evidence of the relationship between stuttering and related psychiatric symptoms such as chronic anxiety, depression and social phobia. The aim of this article is to understand the interaction between stuttering and social anxiety. It also highlights the existing intervention strategies for stuttering and the need to develop intervention protocols that directly address the social fears accompanying disfluencies or intervention strategies that may be more efficacious in reducing or eliminating stuttering behaviors.

Key words: Stuttering, social impact, social anxiety, intervention

Introduction

Speech is the verbal method of communication and is crucial for effective social communication, occupational achievement and quality of life. Stuttering is a speech disorder that interrupts smooth flow of speech and hence communication. Stuttering manifests as automatic interruption of an individual’s ability to speak. It is a fluency disorder that results in frequent repetitions or prolongations of sounds or syllables, while speaking or reading aloud1. It manifests in childhood and may persist into adulthood. It is primarily characterized by repetitions of sounds, syllables or words, audible or inaudible prolongations (around 1-4 sec) or blocks. These may be seen in the beginning of a word or sentence. Several secondary behaviours also accompany stuttering behaviors. This may include eye blinking, avoiding eye contact, jaw jerks while speaking, hand or finger fidgeting, restlessness while speaking etc. These may be construed as learned approaches to minimise the disfluencies and can add to the patients discomfort and awkwardness while speaking. These secondary behaviors may manifest differently in adults as linguistic escape and avoidance behaviors including word substitutions, interjections and modification of sentences. The disturbances causes anxiety about speaking or limitations in effective communication, social participation, or academic or occupational performance, individually or in any combination2.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. Vandana.V. P., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Speech Pathology and Audiology
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology
NIMHANS
Bangalore-560029
Karnataka
India
vpvandana@gmail.com
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