The purpose of the present study was to examine relations between children's emotional reactivity, emotion regulation and stuttering. Participants were 65 preschool children who stutter (CWS) and 56 preschool children who do not stutter (CWNS). Parents completed the Behavior Style Questionnaire (BSQ) [McDevitt S. C., & Carey, W. B. (1978). A measure of temperament in 3-7 year old children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines,19,[245][246][247][248][249][250][251][252][253]. Three groups of BSQ items measuring emotional reactivity, emotion regulation, and attention regulation were identified by experts in children's emotions. Findings indicated that when compared to their normally fluent peers, CWS were significantly more reactive, significantly less able to regulate their emotions, and had significantly poorer attention regulation, even after controlling for gender, age, and language abilities. Findings suggest that the relatively greater emotional reactivity experienced by preschool children who stutter, together with their relative inability to flexibly control their attention and regulate the emotions they experience, may contribute to the difficulties these children have establishing reasonably fluent speech and language.Learning outcomes-The reader should be able to (1) define emotional reactivity and emotion regulation, (2) explain how emotional reactivity and emotion regulation relate to preschool stuttering, and (3) understand recent empirical evidence linking reactivity and regulation to preschool stuttering.Despite an extensive literature in psychology regarding emotional reactivity and regulation (see Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992, for a review) and an equally extensive literature in speechlanguage pathology regarding stuttering (e.g., Bloodstein, 1995; Conture, 2001; Guitar, 1998), in recent years there has been relatively little intersection between speech-language pathology approaches to stuttering and psychological approaches to emotion, stress and coping (for early, notable exceptions, see Fitzsimons, 1960, and Brutten & Shoemaker, 1967). This is unfortunate given that emotional reactivity and regulation have been shown to influence a wide range of developmentally important outcomes such as communication (Dixon & Shore, 1997;Dixon & Smith, 2000;Karrass & Braungart-Rieker, 2003;Paul & Kellogg, 1997), school performance (Ialongo, Edelsohn, & Kellam, 2001), and psychopathology (Eisenberg et al., 1993; Eisenberg, Fabes et al., 1997) in children who do not stutter.Given the relations among emotional reactivity and regulation and communicative development, there is reason to expect that reactivity and regulation may influence childhood stuttering, or at least possibly exacerbate or maintain the problem. This expectation is consistent with recent reviews and findings from empirical studies regarding the emotional development and behavior of children who stutter (e.g., Anderson, Pellowski, Conture & Kelly, 2003; Embrechts, Ebben, Franke & van de Poel, 1998; Wakaba, 19...

This study assessed emotional and speech-language contributions to childhood stuttering. A dual diathesis-stressor framework guided this study, in which both linguistic requirements and skills, and emotion and its regulation, are hypothesized to contribute to stuttering. The language diathesis consists of expressive and receptive language skills. The emotion diathesis consists of proclivities to emotional reactivity and regulation of emotion, and the emotion stressor consists of experimentally manipulated emotional inductions prior to narrative speaking tasks. Preschool-age children who do and do not stutter were exposed to three emotion-producing overheard conversations—neutral, positive, and angry. Emotion and emotion-regulatory behaviors were coded while participants listened to each conversation and while telling a story after each overheard conversation. Instances of stuttering during each story were counted. Although there was no main effect of conversation type, results indicated that stuttering in preschool-age children is influenced by emotion and language diatheses, as well as coping strategies and situational emotional stressors. Findings support the dual diathesis-stressor model of stuttering.

Two goals guided this study: (a) describe changes in infant fear and anger reactivity from 4 to 16 months and (b) examine the degree to which infant temperament, attentional regulation, and maternal sensitivity predict reactivity trajectories. Participants included 143 mothers and infants (57% male) who visited the laboratory at 4, 8, 12, and 16 months. Infant reactivity, regulation, and maternal sensitivity were assessed from laboratory situations; infant temperament was rated by mothers on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (Rothbart, 1981). Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that overall, fear and anger reactivity increased with age, but the rate of increase for fear slowed over time. Maternal ratings of temperamental fear and anger each predicted laboratory ratings of fear and anger reactivity, respectively. Moreover, infants who showed less regulation showed greater fear reactivity and steeper increases in anger reactivity over time. Infants whose mothers were more sensitive showed slower increases in fear reactivity. Findings from this study suggest that it is important to consider both intrinsic and extrinsic factors to gain a better understanding of the processes that may be involved in the development of emotional reactivity systems.

Purpose Emotional regulation of preschool children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) was assessed using a disappointing gift (DG) procedure (Cole, 1986; Saarni, 1984, 1992). Method Participants consisted of 16 3- to 5-year-old CWS and CWNS (11 boys and 5 girls in each talker group). After assessing each child’s knowledge of display rules about socially-appropriate expression of emotions, children participated in a DG procedure and received a desirable gift preceding a free-play task and a disappointing gift preceding a second free-play task. Dependent variables consisted of participants’ positive and negative expressive nonverbal behaviors exhibited during receipt of a desirable gift and disappointing gift, as well as conversational speech disfluencies exhibited following receipt of each gift. Results Findings indicated that CWS and CWNS exhibited no significant differences in amount of positive emotional expressions after receiving the desired gift; however, CWS, when compared to CWNS, exhibited more negative emotional expressions after receiving the undesirable gift. Furthermore, CWS were more disfluent after receiving the desired gift when compared to receiving the disappointing gift. Ancillary findings also indicated that CWS and CWNS had equivalent knowledge of display rules. Conclusion Findings suggest that efforts to concurrently regulate emotional behaviors and (non)stutterings may be problematic for preschool-age CWS.

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