The effect of unified transdiagnostic treatment on anxiety and emotion regulation of Boy children with stuttering

Childhood is considered as the most important developmental stage in everyone's life. Most children may experience behavioral and emotional problems in this stage. Children who suffer from speech disorder are more sensitive and therefore experience more emotional problems. This research aimed to examine the effect of unified transdiagnostic treatment on anxiety and the regulation of children's emotion who have stuttering.

This research was a semi-experimental (pre-test-post-test-follow-up) type of ABA single-subject designs. The research population consisted of 8-12-year-old boys with stuttering, 6 of them were purposefully selected from speech therapy centers, but due to the drop of 2 of the subjects, 4 of them were examined in the study. The tools of this research included Riley's (1994) stuttering severity questionnaires, Reynolds' and Richmond's (1978) manifest anxiety, and Garnevsky and Craig's (2007) cognitive regulation of emotion. The treatment sessions of this research were conducted by the researcher in 12 sessions. For data analysis, visual analysis and effect size were used in the method of reduction from the baseline.

The results indicated that unified transdiagnostic treatment can reduce the12% to 27% stuttering and it can reduce the 17% to 33% anxiety and it can also improve10% to 21% positive strategies for emotion regulation and it can reduce  9% to 16% negative strategies for emotion regulation.

Transdiagnostic integrated treatment can be effective in reducing the severity of stuttering and anxiety symptoms, as well as reducing the use of negative emotion regulation strategies and increasing and improving positive emotion regulation strategies