Anxiety and Social Phobia in Stuttering

This study compared symptoms of anxiety among a sample of 22 stutterers to previously gathered data for social phobics and nonpatient controls. Stutterers had more social anxiety and avoidance than did nonpatient controls. The stuttering group had less social distress and avoidance, less fear of negative evaluation, fewer symptoms of social phobia, and fewer symptoms of agoraphobia as compared to the social phobia group. There was not, however, a significant difference between the stuttering and social phobia groups on a measure of general anxiety. The majority of stutterers reported speech-related fear as their primary phobia. The results of the study suggest that stutterers may not suffer from social phobia, but that some stutterers may avoid social situations because of fear of stuttering.