title: Sympathetic arousal of young children who stutter during a stressful picture naming task.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of the current study was to investigate sympathetic arousal of young children who do and do not stutter during a stressful picture-naming task under instructions to name pictures as rapidly as possible.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-seven young children who stutter (CWS) and 39 young children who do not stutter (CWNS) served as participants. Dependent measures consisted of tonic skin conductance during a pretask baseline, a stress-inducing rapid picture-naming task, and post-picture-naming task condition.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Findings indicated that, when chronological age was not taken into account, there was no between-group difference in tonic skin conductance level. When age was taken into account, however, there was a significant talker group×age group interaction, with follow-up analyses indicating that 3-year-old CWS exhibited significantly higher sympathetic arousal than their CWNS peers, and their 4-year-old CWNS peers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Findings were taken to be consistent with non-physiological results indicating an association between emotional processes and childhood stuttering. This association, at least for this cross-sectional study of tonic skin conductance level (SCL) during a picture-naming task, was moderated by children's chronological age. Such developmental differences may be associated with various processes, for example, attention, cognition, or physiology, or some combination of two or more of these processes. Future empirical study of these processes in young CWS and CWNS may profit from longitudinal measurement of converging lines of evidence from behavioral, parent and psychophysiological indexes of emotional reactivity and regulation.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  After reading this article, the reader will be able to: (a) discuss salient findings in the literature regarding the association between emotional processes and childhood stuttering; (b) discuss sympathetic arousal, and how skin conductance is used to measure it; and (c) discuss the role of chronological age in the association between emotion and stuttering in young children.
authors: Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 1215 21st Avenue South, Suite 8310 MCE South Tower, Nashville, TN 37232-8242, United States. Electronic address: hatun.zengin@Vanderbilt.Edu.
authors: Hatun
authors: H
authors: Zengin-Bolatkale
authors: Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 1215 21st Avenue South, Suite 8310 MCE South Tower, Nashville, TN 37232-8242, United States. Electronic address: edward.g.conture@Vanderbilt.Edu.
authors: Edward G
authors: EG
authors: Conture
authors: Department of Psychology and Human Development, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203-5721, United States. Electronic address: tedra.walden@Vanderbilt.Edu.
authors: Tedra A
authors: TA
authors: Walden
mesh_terms: D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013060:Speech; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013342:Stuttering / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Childhood stuttering; Chronological age; Emotion; Skin conductance; Stress