Cross-Cultural Comparison of Public Attitudes and Adverse Impact of Stuttering

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore potential links between public perceptions ofstuttering and the adverse impact of these perceptions on the experiences of individuals who stutter. This was completed by analyzing data from a demographic survey, the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes (POSHA), the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES), and the Stuttering Perception Scale (4S). Data was collected from the United States and Australia. Methods: This was a qualitative study that involved 24 people who stutter from the United States and 22 people who stutter from Australia, as well as 45 people who do not stutter from the United States and 48 people who do not stutter from Australia (aged 18+) who were recruited via research registries, personal contacts, stuttering associations, and by word of mouth. A descriptive analysis was completed using the student’s t-test, the Chi Square test, and percentage ‘yes’ to determine the presence of significant differences in the data. Results: No significant differences were found regarding adverse impact and self-stigma between respondents from the United States and Australia. No significant differences were also found regarding public perceptions of stuttering between respondents from the United States and Australia. Conclusions: The following results can be interpreted as indicating that there are minimal differences cross-culturally for adverse impact and self-stigma in respondents who stutter, as well as minimal differences cross-culturally for public perceptions of stuttering in respondents who do not stutter.