Sympathetic Nervous System Activity in Preschoolers Who Stutter

Abstract

BackgroundIn our Dynamic Pathways, account, we hypothesized that childhood stuttering reflects an impairment in speech sensorimotor control that is conditioned by cognitive, linguistic, and emotional factors. The purpose of this study was to investigate potential differences in levels of sympathetic arousal during performance of speech and non-speech tasks between children who do and do not stutter.MethodsSeventy-two preschool-aged children participated in the study, 47 children who stutter (CWS; 38 boys) and 25 children who do not stutter (CWNS; 18 boys). We recorded skin conductance and blood pulse volume (BPV) signals, indices of sympathetic arousal, during higher/lower load speech tasks (structured sentence production and picture description) and non-speech tasks (jaw wagging and forceful blowing). We included a measure that reflects children’s attitudes about their communication skills and a parent-report assessment of temperament.ResultsWe found no significant differences between preschool CWS and CWNS in phasic skin conductance response amplitude or frequency, BPV, and pulse rate for any of the experimental tasks. However, compared to CWNS, CWS had, on average, significantly higher skin conductance levels (SCL), indexing slowly changing tonic sympathetic activity, across both speech and non-speech experimental conditions. We found distinctive task-related profiles of sympathetic arousal in both groups of preschool children. Most children produced the highest levels of sympathetic arousal in the physically demanding blowing task rather than in speech, as seen in previous studies of adults. We did not find differences in temperament between the two groups of preschool children nor a relationship among behavioral indices of temperament and communication attitude and physiological measures of sympathetic arousal.ConclusionWe did not find that atypically high, speech-related sympathetic arousal is a significant factor in early childhood stuttering. Rather, CWS had higher, on average, task-related tonic SCLs across speech and non-speech tasks. A relationship among behavioral measures of temperament and physiological measures of sympathetic arousal was not confirmed. Key questions for future experiments are how the typical coupling of sympathetic and speech sensorimotor systems develops over childhood and adolescence and whether task related developmental profiles follow a different course in children who continue to stutter.

Physiological Correlates of Fluent and Stuttered Speech Production in Preschool Children Who Stutter

“…Compared to CWNS, several studies have found temperamental differences in some CWS, such as increased anger or frustration, and greater difficulty regulating emotions or adapting to change (Anderson, Pellowski, Conture, & Kelly, 2003;Eggers, De Nil, & Van den Bergh, 2010;Karrass et al, 2006). However, others' and our research have not revealed temperamental differences between young CWS and CWNS using parent report measures (Kefalianos, Onslow, Ukoumunne, Block, & Reilly, 2014, 2017Walsh, Smith, Christ & Weber, 2019).…”

“…Data from 22 preschool CWS (19 boys and three girls; M = 53.3 months, SD = 6.15, range: 46-71) were included in this study. These children participated in a larger investigation conducted by the Purdue Stuttering Project comparing behavioral indices of temperament and SNS responses during speech and oral motor tasks in preschool CWS and their fluent peers (Walsh et al, 2019). We included children from the larger study in the current study if they produced at least six stuttered and six fluent utterances during a picture description task, described below.…”

Leveraging big data for classification of children who stutter from fluent peers

“…While social anxiety is commonly reported in adults who stutter, the same has not been consistently reported in children who stutter. Direct examination of emotional processing in children who stutter has been rare, though some studies have reported subtle differences in CWS in terms of autonomic nervous system responses to challenging speech tasks (nonword repetition; (Tumanova & Backes, 2019)) or emotionally stressful stimuli ((Jones et al, 2014; Walsh et al, 2019). The current BBS results suggest that brain networks linked to emotional regulation and their connectivity with cognitive control networks may differentiate children who stutter.…”

Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in Preschool-Age Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter: Evidence From Autonomic Nervous System Measures

“…Psychophysiological research with children who stutter is somewhat limited. However, recently a number of studies have examined CWS's autonomic nervous system response to such speaking conditions as picture naming, picture description, and non-word repetition (Jones et al, 2014 , 2017 ; Zengin-Bolatkale et al, 2015 , 2018 ; Choi et al, 2016 ; Tumanova and Backes, 2019 ; Walsh and Usler, 2019 ; Walsh et al, 2019 ). Results of these studies generally indicate that CWS do not have an elevated level of autonomic arousal during speaking.…”

“…Results of these studies generally indicate that CWS do not have an elevated level of autonomic arousal during speaking. However, between-group differences in arousal, based on age (Zengin-Bolatkale et al, 2015 ) and task complexity (Tumanova and Backes, 2019 ), as well as within-CWS differences, based on stuttering chronicity (Zengin-Bolatkale et al, 2018 ), and speech fluency (Walsh et al, 2019 ) have been observed.…”