Investigating perspective taking and caregiver-proxy–child communication attitude agreement in early childhood stuttering

Consistent with research with typically developing children, there is substantial variability in perspective taking in children age 3-6 who stutter, with evidence of emerging affective, but comparatively limited cognitive perspective taking skills. Caregiver-proxy - child agreement on the Kiddy-CAT, a measure that requires both affective and cognitive perspective taking, appears to be stronger for children with more advanced speech and language. Given that at least some young children and their caregivers appear to be aware of each other's perspectives regarding the child's communication, clinicians should facilitate discussion of stuttering and reactions to stuttering openly and neutrally with these caregivers and their children.