English-only treatment of bilingual speakers who stutter: Generalization of treatment effects from English to Mandarin.

PURPOSE: Speech language pathologists often do not speak the dominant language of their clients and so the language of treatment is an important consideration. This research investigated whether stuttering treatment delivered in English resulted in reductions in stuttering in English and Mandarin bilingual Singaporean speakers. METHOD: Participants were 19 English-Mandarin bilinguals who stuttered. They received a speech re-structuring intensive program (IP) delivered in English only. Three 10-minute conversations in English and Mandarin, sampled at pre-treatment, immediately post IP, 4 weeks post IP and 12 weeks post IP, were analysed by two English-Mandarin bilingual clinicians for percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS). RESULT: After English-only treatment, stuttering reductions were found to generalize to Mandarin. Stuttering reductions were significantly higher in English compared to Mandarin at 4 weeks post-IP, but there was no significant difference in the stuttering reductions between languages at the end of IP and at 12 weeks post-IP. Mean %SS scores for English and Mandarin were comparable with the outcome data reported for a similar intensive speech-restructuring program for monolingual English-speaking adults. CONCLUSION: The results of this study show that stuttering reductions can be achieved in two languages following treatment in one language only. Future research in this area is proposed.

Stuttering in English-Mandarin bilingual speakers: the influence of language dominance on stuttering severity.

PURPOSE: English and Mandarin are the 2 most spoken languages in the world, yet it is not known how stuttering manifests in English-Mandarin bilinguals. In this research, the authors investigated whether the severity and type of stuttering is different in English and Mandarin in English-Mandarin bilinguals, and whether this difference was influenced by language dominance. METHOD: Thirty English-Mandarin bilinguals who stutter (BWS), ages 12-44 years, were categorized into 3 groups (15 English-dominant, 4 Mandarin-dominant, and 11 balanced bilinguals) using a self-report classification tool. Three 10-min conversations in English and Mandarin were assessed by 2 English-Mandarin bilingual clinicians for percent syllables stuttered (%SS), perceived stuttering severity (SEV), and types of stuttering behaviors using the Lidcombe Behavioral Data Language (LBDL; Packman & Onslow, 1998; Teesson, Packman, & Onslow, 2003). RESULTS: English-dominant and Mandarin-dominant BWS exhibited higher %SS and SEV scores in their less dominant language, whereas the scores for the balanced bilinguals were similar for both languages. The difference in the percentage of stutters per LBDL category between English and Mandarin was not markedly different for any bilingual group. CONCLUSIONS: Language dominance appeared to influence the severity but not the types of stuttering behaviors in BWS. Clinicians working with BWS need to assess language dominance when diagnosing stuttering severity in bilingual clients.