Familial persistent developmental stuttering: disfluencies and prevalence

PURPOSE: to characterize and to compare the frequency of speech disfluency in adults with familial persistent developmental stuttering in males and females, the stuttering severity and then to determinate the familial prevalence and the sexual ratio of stuttering among the families members of the probands. METHODS: participants were 30 adults who stutter (ages between 18 and 53 years old), divided in two groups: one with 20 males, and the other with 10 females. Data were gathered by clinical and familial history, fluency assessment and Stuttering Severity Instrument. RESULTS: the percentages of stuttering-like disfluencies (SLD) (p=0.352), of other disfluencies (OD) (p=0.947) and of total disfluencies (TD) (p=0.522) were similar between the males and females. The participants showed a mean of 5.23% of SLD and 5.5% of OD. The mild subgroup was the prevalent among the participants (83.3%). The male families' members showed greater risk to stutter when compared to the females (p