The Hilden Q sort was administered to 110 white students attending 10 junior high schools. The SS members of the control group were matched with the stutterers in the experimental group for age, sex, IQ, grade, school, and socioeconomic level. Stutterers were less self-accepting than nonstutterers and perceived their parents to be less accepting of them. No significant difference was found between perceived maternal and paternal acceptance for either group.Stuttering may be a neurotic symptom fulfilling psychosexual needs (Fenichel, 1945; Glauber, 19S8). Alternatively, stuttering may be a communication disorder resulting from the subjection of a biologically predisposed organism to particular kinds of environmental stress (Bluemel, 1957;West, 1958). Stuttering may also be thought of as a complex of reactions to normal nonfluency triggered by environmental pressures only (Johnson, 1959). Whatever their basic theoretical persuasions, however, authorities concede that stuttering must be related in part to psychosocial factors. Otherwise it would be impossible to explain the variability of stuttering (Bloodstein, 1949) or its absence in certain cultures (Bullen, 1945;Snidecor, 1947). Goodstein and Dahlstrom (1956) reported that the parents of stutterers, when tested on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), do not appear to be malad-1 This article is based on a portion of a doctoral dissertation completed at Teachers College, Columbia University, under the sponsorship of Edward D. Mysak, chairman of the dissertation committee. Donald E. Super and Robert L. Thorndike served as committee members. Rosedith Sitgreaves provided important statistical consultation and Manuel Cynamon of Brooklyn College programmed some of the data for IBM analysis. The author is indebted to them for their time and help.
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