Stuttering increases the risk of social anxiety

10 years ago, The speech of a king by Tom Hooper shed light on a problem that affects around 700,000 people in France: stuttering. In the United States, President Joe Biden has also had to struggle all his life against this fluency disorder and has shown that it is not an obstacle to success, even if it involves holding many speeches to large audiences. Recently, researchers have suggested that risperidone, a drug usually prescribed for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, helps block receptors in the brain that act on dopamine whose high levels are associated with stuttering.

A third of patients waiting for speech therapy have social anxiety disorder

Many researchers have revealed that people who stutter also suffer from psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression or social phobia. The media The Conversation relates the case of a Norwegian study, published on 1^er October 2019 in the Journal of Communication Disorders, conducted on 21 people who studied the relationship between stuttering and certain personality traits. In it, lead author Hilda Sønsterud, a psychology researcher at the University of Oslo, found that psychological well-being, measured in her study by self-reported happiness or life satisfaction respect to life, probably plays an important role. “In these models, well-being has an overall influence on everyday experiences. Measures of well-being remain relatively stable regardless of changes in a person’s life circumstances. This implies that individual differences in well-being affect experiences of stuttering, rather than the effects of stuttering affecting well-being”, she concluded.

This relationship between personality and stuttering shows that, to improve their situation, people who stutter need more than treatment by a speech therapist alone. A study published on March 19, 2018 in the Journal of Fluency Disorders provides an example since she suggests that a third of patients waiting for speech therapy have a social anxiety disorder. “This group reported greater speech dissatisfaction and negative life impact of stuttering than those without a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder. They clearly needed treatment for issues beyond speech dysfluency to improve their quality of life.”, concluded the authors of the study. In addition, a 2013 study, also published in the Journal of Fluency Disorderssuggests that speech-language pathologists and psychologists work closely together to develop programs to effectively assess and treat social anxiety in people who stutter.

Stuttering, not just negative

In The Conversation, the author, a university professor of psychology who has been known to stutter since a young age, also wishes to shed light on the positive aspects associated with stuttering. People who stutter typically display increased empathy, appreciation of societal support, greater resilience, and a more positive identity. US President Joe Biden has often explained that stuttering gave him extra motivation. “ I have worked all my life to overcome stuttering. And I am proud to inspire children who also go through it. It’s called empathy”, he tweeted in December 2019.

I’ve worked my whole life to overcome a stutter. And it’s my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It’s called empathy. Look it up. https://t.co/0kd0UJr9Rs

—Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 20, 2019