Attention Bias in School-Age Children Who Stutter: Evidence From a Dot-Probe Task.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Cognitive models of anxiety attribute anxiety and ruminative thought patterns to selective processing of threat-related stimuli that automatically capture attention. We explored whether stuttering was associated with similar attentional biases by examining: (a) whether school-age children who stutter (CWS) differed from controls in selective processing of threat-related and neutral stimuli and (b) whether attentional biases in CWS were specific to threat stimuli that reflected stuttering-related experience.

Method

Participants included 39 children (19 CWS), ages 8 to 15 years. Children completed a dot-probe task in which they responded as quickly as possible to on-screen probes that replaced threat-related or neutral words. Three types of threat words were presented:

SUBMITTER: Eichorn N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12263188 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature