Attitudes towards stuttering of parents and other family members of children who stutter in Egypt

Introduction: Public attitudes towards stuttering have been shown to reflect negative stereotypes and stigma around the world, and especially so in several Middle Eastern studies. Nevertheless, attitudes of nonstuttering individuals who are close friends with – or related to – a person who stutters have been shown to be more positive than the public without such experience with stuttering.Purpose: To measure attitudes towards stuttering of parents and other family members of individuals who stutter in Egypt.Method: A sample of 100 Egyptian family members of children who stutter, 80% of whom were the children's parents, rated their attitudes towards stuttering on an Arabic version of the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes–Stuttering (POSHA–S) (St. Louis, 2011 St. Louis, K. O. (2011). The public Opinion survey of human attributes-stuttering (POSHA–S): summary framework and empirical comparisons. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 36, 256–261. doi: 10.1016/j.jfludis.2011.02.003[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).Results: Egyptian parents displayed attitudes towards stuttering and people who stutter that were less positive than other samples around the world from the POSHA–S database.Conclusion: Cultural differences between Egypt and Western countries were interpreted to explain less positive attitudes overall. Also, being a parent or close relative of a stuttering child failed to foster more positive attitudes towards stuttering than comparison Middle East samples. Public awareness campaigns directed at promoting accurate information about stuttering among Egyptian parents should be undertaken to mitigate their negative attitudes.