Verbal interaction between mother and stuttering and nonstuttering children

The goal of this study is to compare the verbal interaction between mothers and stuttering and non-stuttering children. The subjects were 40 Farsi speaking mother-child pairs, including 20 mothers with stuttering children and 20 mothers with non-stuttering children. The subjects were matched according to age, gender, sensory health, and some psychological variables. The subjects had interaction with each other for 10 minutes, and with the experimenter for 5 minutes while completing a puzzle. The interactions were audiotaped. The results showed significant differences for all communicative items. The mothers of stuttering children use more words (p< 0.5), the stuttering children also use more words (p< 0.5). The results lend tentative support for the notion that the interaction between these two groups are different in some aspects, which must be taken into consideration in treatment.