Impact of stuttering related emotions on participation in educational activities among adolescents with stuttering in Western Province

Abstract

The nature of stuttering has the potential to elicit embarrassment, frustration, and/or pity from the listener; therefore, it is inevitable that it is associated with some degree of fear, anxiety, and/or frustration in the person who stutters. The main aim of the study was to determine the influence of stuttering-related emotions on participation in educational activities and to specifically identify the types of emotions (negative/positive) of adolescents with stuttering, to determine thoughts associated with activities related to education of adolescents with stuttering and to identify the impact of stuttering related emotions and thoughts on the participation in the activities related to education. The study included 20 adolescents in the age range 11 – 17 with stuttering who are attending mainstream schools and have accessed speech and language therapy clinics in general hospitals in the Western Province but still received only the assessments. 75% were male and 25% were female. A descriptive cross-sectional mixed study (with quantitative and qualitative components) was used for this study and two different tasks were used for collecting data: self-administered questionnaire (Likert scale) and Semi-structured interview. The content validity was done with 5 SLTs with 5 years‘ clinical experience. The continuous variable was used in obtaining the mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum values, while the descriptive analysis of the discrete variables was used to calculate the absolute and relative frequency. Phenomenological qualitative data was analysed through thematic analysis. The present study indicates that adolescents with stuttering have more negative feelings and thoughts toward their stuttering; the majority of the participants had to experience negativity in school, classroom and private class situations. These negative emotions and thoughts related to stuttering mainly negatively affected their participation in educational activities. Therefore, the current study concludes that most adolescents with stuttering impact their participation in educational activities due to negative emotions and thoughts related to stuttering. However, supportiveness from friends, teachers and other educational professions can encourage positive feelings and thoughts which may then transform this to a positive output.