Communication attitude of Italian children who do and do not stutter

The purpose of this factorial study was to establish normative data for the Italian version of the Communication Attitude Test (CAT) in order to determine whether or not the speech-associated attitude reported by Italian children who stutter (CWS) differs significantly from that of their nonstuttering peers (CWNS). Toward this end, the Italian CAT was administered to 149 CWS and 148 CWNS between the ages of 6 and 14. The results showed that the mean CAT score of the CWS sampled is higher, to a statistically significant extent, than that of their nonstuttering peers. Moreover, age and gender did not differentially affect this result. Together, these findings and the large between-group effect size suggest that the CAT is a useful clinical aid in evaluating the attitude of Italian children whose fluency is problematic. It can serve well to determine if a child's speech-associated belief system needs to be addressed in therapy and, if so, whether or not the cognitive change tactics employed have been effective.