Study of Self Esteem and Presence of Anxiety in a Sample of Egyptian Children with Stuttering

Abstract

Abstract Background: children who stutter often exhibit behavioral changes, also stuttering may lead to development of anxiety and lower self-esteem. Aim of the study: the study aims to detect the self-esteem and anxiety in Egyptian children who stutter and their relation with stuttering severity. Patients and methods: A case-control study, including thirty-one children who stutter and thirty-one control (fluent children). After full-filling the inclusion and exclusion criteria, Stuttering Severity Instrument –Arabic form (SSI-A) was applied on stuttering children to confirm the diagnosis and detect the stuttering severity to such cases. The Coppersmith self-esteem Inventory and the children manifest anxiety scale were administrated to evaluate the self-esteem and anxiety symptoms, respectively. Results: Compared with controls, the children who stutter had a significant difference in the general domain (p=0.002) and in the academic domain (p=0.005). A highly significant difference between both groups regards the total score of self-esteem (SE) (p<0.001), social SE (p<0.001), although both groups had good academic SE. There was a non-significant difference in home SE (p=0.099). According to the revised children manifest anxiety scale, the stuttering group showed a significant score , but not detected statistically except the negative expectation (p=0.045).