A parent-report scale of behavioral inhibition: Validation and application to preschool-age children who do and do not stutter

•The Short Behavioral Inhibition Scale (SBIS) has good internal consistency and test-retest reliability.•Preschool-age CWS, compared with their CWNS peers, are more apt – on average and at the extremes – to exhibit significantly higher behavioral inhibition tendencies.•For preschool-age CWS, behavioral inhibition – as measured by the SBIS - is significantly associated with stuttering frequency, stuttering severity, stuttering-related consequences/reactions, and speech-associated communication attitudes (for CWS older than 4 years of age).•The Short Behavioral Inhibition Scale (SBIS), a brief (i.e., 5-item) parent-report questionnaire of behavioral inhibition, may be considered for inclusion as part of a comprehensive fluency diagnostic.•Children who score 13 or lower (i.e., in the low 15th percentile of the SBIS distribution) can be reasonably assumed to exhibit behavioral inhibition tendencies. This two-part (i.e., Study 1, Study 2) study investigated behavioral inhibition (BI) in preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not (CWNS) stutter. The purpose of Study 1 was to develop the Short Behavioral Inhibition Scale (SBIS), a parent-report scale of BI. The purpose of Study 2 was to determine, based on the SBIS, differences in BI between CWS and CWNS, and associations between BI and CWS’s stuttering frequency, stuttering severity, speech-associated attitudes, and stuttering-related consequences/reactions. Participants in Study 1 were 225 CWS and 243 CWNS with the majority of them being included in Study 2. In Study 2, a speech sample was obtained for the calculation of stuttering frequency and severity, and the parents of a subset of CWS completed the Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter (Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2007), and the Test of Childhood Stuttering Disfluency-Related Consequences Rating Scale (Gillam, Logan, & Pearson, 2009). Study 1 analyses indicated that SBIS is a valid and reliable tool whose items assess a single, relatively homogeneous construct. In Study 2, CWS exhibited greater mean and extreme BI tendencies than CWNS. Also CWS with higher, compared to CWS with lower, BI presented with greater stuttering frequency, more severe stuttering, greater stuttering-related consequences, and more negative communication attitudes (for CWS older than 4 years of age). Findings were taken to suggest that BI is associated with early childhood stuttering and that the SBIS could be included as part of a comprehens