The Palin Parent Rating Scales: Parents' Perspectives of Childhood Stuttering and Its Impact

Abstract

The Palin Parent Rating Scale is a valid and reliable tool, providing a method of exploring parents' perceptions of stuttering, the impact it has on the child and themselves, and the parents' knowledge of and confidence in managing the stuttering. This is an important addition to the existing range of assessments that may be used to evaluate stuttering in children up to age 14;6 (years;months) and allows the wider targets of parent-led therapy programs to be evaluated.

Communication attitudes in children who stutter: A meta-analytic review

“…Smith and Weber (2016) highlighted the challenges of developing reliable and valid measures of emotional factors in young children, which also relate to the challenges of measuring how children are affected by stuttering. Parental reports have commonly been used in investigating the impact of stuttering (e.g., Langevin et al, 2010;Millard & Davis, 2016). However, as no study to date has targeted agreement between child and parent report by application of the same instrument for both groups, the level of agreement between children and parents remains unclear.…”

“…In recent decades, a number of studies have investigated the consequences of stuttering for the youngest affected population: children aged two to six years (referred to hereafter as young children). While investigations of impact have depended mainly on parental reports (e.g., Langevin, Packman & Onslow, 2010;Millard & Davis. 2016), studies targeting communication attitudes have commonly used self-reporting from the age of three (e.g., Brce & Vanryckeghem, 2017;Clark et al, 2012;Vanryckeghem, De Niels, & Vanrobaeys, 2015).…”

Investigating resilience, perceived social support and trait anxiety levels of mothers of school-age children who stutter

“…A study conducted by Millard et al utilized the Palin Parent Rating Scale, which was specifically prepared for stuttering, and assessed the familial perspective. Their findings showed that parents are anxious about stuttering (14) . Profiling parent anxiety levels is significant due to the following reasons: first, the anxiety levels of parents may refer to a psychopathology per se and this should be managed (10) ; second, the parents' anxiety can be conveyed to their children, and this situation may have a negative impact on the long-term reaction the children towards stuttering (14) .…”

“…Their findings showed that parents are anxious about stuttering (14) . Profiling parent anxiety levels is significant due to the following reasons: first, the anxiety levels of parents may refer to a psychopathology per se and this should be managed (10) ; second, the parents' anxiety can be conveyed to their children, and this situation may have a negative impact on the long-term reaction the children towards stuttering (14) . In addition, the role of parents is a key factor in modeling resilient responses to children and creating a resilience-rich environment.…”

“…In the context of emotional reactions, it has been reported that having children who stutter (CWS evokes negative emotions that include anger, sadness, anxiety, frustration, and self-accusation of parents (7,(10)(11)(12)(13) . Moreover, it has been indicated that parents are anxious about the likelihood that stuttering will negatively affect their children's future lives, social relationships and self-confidence (7,9,11,14) .…”