title: Stuttering severity, psychosocial impact and lexical diversity as predictors of outcome for treatment of stuttering.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study assessed factors that predicted therapy outcome for children and adolescents who stuttered after attendance at an intensive therapy course. The factors examined were stuttering severity, lexical diversity measured by Type Token Ratio, and psychosocial impact of stuttering on the child's life.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-four children who stuttered (CWS) participated in the study. The hypotheses were: (1) CWS with high initial stuttering severity would be more likely to persist than those with low initial severity; (2) lexical diversity before treatment should be related to therapy outcome; (3) psychosocial factors would affect therapy outcome. The predictions were assessed by linear and logistic regression analyses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Initial stuttering severity was the only significant predictor for stuttering severity after therapy. However, psychosocial impact correlated with improvement in fluency, and lexical diversity correlated with therapy outcome.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Only initial stuttering severity was a significant predictor of therapy outcome after an intensive therapy intervention. This is in agreement with the study of Howell and Davis (2011).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Readers will get an overview of the literature on risk factors that are considered to predict therapy outcomes for CWS. They will be able to (a) identify what variable represent potential risk factors, (b) describe the psychosocial impact of stuttering, (c) explain how lexical diversity is measured, and (d) describe different assessment instruments used to decide on the outcome of therapy.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology and Language Science, University College London, Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, England, United Kingdom. susanne.cook@me.com
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Donlan
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Howell
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011584:Psychology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013070:Speech Therapy; D013342:Stuttering / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult