Study Examines Resilience Training for Children Who Stutter

For many children who stutter, one of the biggest challenges to overcome is not the stuttering itself. Teasing, bullying and persistent worry about negative social reactions can affect participation at school and in their social life, said Gregory Snyder, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders.

In a study published in the Journal of Fluency Disorders, Snyder and Ole Miss graduate Emily Williams Thornton examined whether a resilience-focused program could address these challenges.

"As a child, I was told, 'If you can't talk fluently, don't talk at all,'" Snyder said. "When children hear messages like that, they can carry them into every speaking situation.

"Instead of focusing on what they want to say, they may begin to constantly monitory their speech, anticipating judgement and deciding whether speaking is worth the risk."

That mentality can make speaking even harder, he said.

"That's where the idea of resilience comes in," he said. "Resilience is not an instruction to accept bullying or to make a child responsible for other people's behavior.

"It gives children practical ways to regulate emotion, respond to unkindness, ask for support, mentor others, and continue participating in school and social life."

Snyder's research has shown that stuttering is a neurological condition that can reveal itself in handwriting, sign language and other nonspoken forms of communication.

Some 3 million adults in the United States stutter, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Around 5% of children experience a period of stuttering, and about 1% of the population has persistent stuttering, according to the Stuttering Foundation.

"We know from research that these children are reporting higher rates of bullying, teasing and anxiety related to their speech," said Thornton, who graduated in 2024 with a master's degree in communication sciences and disorders. "Then we see the cycle that quickly establishes: If you're made fun of for your speech, then you'll start to overthink or second-guess everything you have to say in public.

"That creates pressure to speak a certain way, which can actually influence how you do speak, and then either you exhaust yourself trying to avoid stuttering or you open yourself up to additional potentially negative attention by speaking and inevitably stuttering."

Over six weeks, Snyder and Thornton led a team that delivered 12 live online sessions to six children ages 8 to 12. The lessons were loosely adapted from a character education video series from resilience educator Brooks Gibbs and addressed coping strategies, emotional regulation, realistic optimism, empathy and self-advocacy.

Gibbs provided the material free to the research team and encouraged them to adapt it to the pilot program.

"His contribution provided a strong, developmentally appropriate foundation," Snyder said. "We were then able to reconstruct the material around the communication situations children who stutter face, including teasing, classroom participation, self-advocacy, knowing when to seek help, and how to help and mentor others."

At the end of the study, more than two-thirds of the students showed clear improvement in resilience. A larger study is needed to verify results, the researchers said.

Resilience work is not about getting a child to hide stuttering or treating peer mistreatment as the child's responsibility," Snyder said. "It's about helping children stay engaged, recognize when they need support and respond to difficult moments with empowerment, self-advocacy and self-respect."

Because the program was delivered through telepractice, the researchers were able to recruit students from Mississippi and across the country. Modeling the program to a digital platform means it can be an accessible addition to speech therapy, Thornton said.

"It seems to be another great tool for the therapeutic toolbox," she said. "Some kids will have no inhibitions about their stuttering and will not care an iota about what peers or anyone else may say to them about it, and for those, they may not have much to gain from this kind of treatment.

"For others, it will matter a lot. The majority of children will probably fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. Resilience training may help those in the latter two categories figure out how to navigate life in the classroom and beyond."

Top: Teaching children who stutter how to cope with bullying and social pressures can help them feel more confident and comfortable with speaking in public, including classroom participation. Ole Miss researchers have developed a program to help children learn these skills through a telepractice setting. Adobe Stock photo