Is One Language Enough? Assessing Overt Stuttering Severity in Bilingual Children

Introduction: Little is known about how overt stuttering severity varies across the two languages of bilingual children who stutter (CWS). Most existing studies have focused on adults or relied solely on disfluency frequency measures. This study addressed this gap by examining overt stuttering severity in early bilingual CWS with extensive non-dominant (L2) exposure using the Stuttering Severity Instrument (SSI-4), to determine whether assessment in one or both languages is necessary. The potential influence of sample type (spontaneous vs. narrative) on stuttering severity was also explored. Methods: Participants were twenty-two bilingual Lebanese CWS aged 4;06 to 7;06. Language dominance was determined via parental questionnaires. Each child produced spontaneous and narrative speech samples in both their dominant language (L1) and L2, which were analyzed using the SSI-4 framework. Results: No significant differences emerged between L1 and L2 in overall SSI-4 scores. Also, no difference between the languages was found in the overall scores for spontaneous and narrative samples. However, when focusing on a single component of stuttering, namely stuttering frequency, spontaneous speech samples yielded a higher number of stuttering events in L2 than in L1. Conclusion: The absence of cross-linguistic differences in overall stuttering severity suggests that, for early bilinguals with high L2 exposure, assessing overt stuttering severity in one language may be sufficient. Nevertheless, including both spontaneous and narrative speech samples remains important, as differences may surface when only one sample type is analyzed.