Khaleeji Parents 'perspective on the Impact of Autism and Stuttering on Their Daily Life.

Background:

Developmental stuttering (DS) arises in childhood, most commonly in the preschool years, for reasons, which are currently not well understood. Current thinking points to multifactorial underpinnings, including the interaction of linguistic, motoric, neurological, environmental and genetic influences.

It is also known that developmental stuttering (DS) can co –occur with a number of communication disorders-including Autism spectrum disorder (Blood, Blood, Maloney, Meyer,& Qualls ,2007). Although there is a lack of research and a very limited evidence on the prevalence of stuttering/disfluency in children with ASD, but there have been several documented cases of stuttering in ASD (Scaler Scott et al., 2006).

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of neurodevelopmental disorders, which manifest in the early years of the child’s life and characterized by difficulties in social interaction, communication and repetitive behaviors/restricted interests, in varying degrees.Since, stuttering is the result of a number of coexisting factors and that these factors influence the onset, impact, and prognosis of stuttering (Rustin, et al., 1996), each child has his own set of factors combination that makes him/her vulnerable to stuttering (Rustin et al., 1996;Startkweather & Gottwald, 1990;Wall & Myers, 1995). Clinical experience has demonstrated that working with parents and carers to modify some of these behaviors such as slowing the rate of speech and improve turn taking, are often helpful in facilitating fluency (Stephenson-Opsal and Bernstein-Ratner 1988; langlois and long 1988;Guitar et al.,1992) .

 Objectives:

To investigate 1)what are the potential factors that makes children with autism spectrum disorders vulnerable to stuttering in a non- western culture from a parent’s perspective, 2) parental attitudes and perceptions towards stuttering and autism in Arabic culture since it has been well studied in western cultures. 3) and whether concomitant disorder has an effect on the types of service delivery to these children.

Methods:

A mixed methodology approach using self –completion, well structured questionnaire that will be distributed to around 100 – 300 Khaleeji parents (Saudi,Oman,Kuwait,Qatar)with children under the age of 18 , from different regions across the Gulf, to access their views, perception and beliefs on: the causes of stuttering and autism; strategies they have used to help their child; impact of stuttering and autism on the child's every day life;impact ofstuttering and autism on parents;level of concern and their views and experiences of the therapy process with the existence of concomitant disorder such as ASD .

Results: Results will be available in few months.

Conclusions: N/A