Research of pragmatic language skills of Turkish speaking children who stutter aged between 5-8 years

Pragmatic skills are defined as the ability to use language within the context appropriately. The development of pragmatic skills continues with peer interaction during school age period. Studies report that children who stutter are socially disadvantaged at school. There are many studies showing that children who stutter have limited peer interaction. Limited peer interaction poses a risk to the development of pragmatic skills. Based on this information, our study aimed to examine the pragmatic language skills of children who stutter and the relationship between stuttering frequency and pragmatic language skills. This study included 64 children aged between 5-8 years who stutter applied to Hacettepe University, Department of Language and Speech Therapy. The frequency of stuttering was calculated by taking spontaneous speech recordings of children. The language development of all participants was evaluated with Turkish School Age Language Development Assessment Test (TODİL). The teachers of the children whose language development was found to be compatible with their peers were contacted. The pragmatic language skills of the children were evaluated through Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory (PLSI), which was graded by the teachers. Findings of PLSI showed that 51.6% of the children participating in the study, scored below the average. It was observed that there was a negative correlation between the frequency of stuttering and PDBI (p<0.05). As the frequency of stuttering increased, pragmatic language skills scores decreased. The results of our study support that pragmatic skills should also be considered when planning the therapy of children with stuttering.