An Analysis of Difficulties of Children with Stuttering Enrolled in Turkish Primary Inclusive Classes Who Encounter in Academic and Social Activities: From Their Perspectives

Abstract

Stuttering means that children have difficulties in rhythm, sound, syllable, word and phrase repetitions, or flow of speech cut in the form of extension or block form. In the International Classification of Diseases (1992) ) (International Classification of Diseases- 10 “ICD-10”), Stuttering was defined as speech disturbances emerging as a result of repetitions or cut of one sound involuntarily although an individual knows what s/he wants to say. The number of children with stuttering applied to the Counseling and Research Centre RAM in Turkey due to speech and language difficulties because of having stuttering  was determined as two thousand and nine hundred and forty six reported with a  research carried out by the Turkish Ministry of National Education in schools (2012). When these children have been classified according to the types of difficulties, it can be seen that stuttering is 42 percent (42%), rhythm disorder is 36 percent (36%), delayed speech is 16 percent (16%), and other speech and language difficulties are 6 percent (% 6) (Sarı, 2014). However, in Turkey, there are few studies related to the difficulties that stuttering children encounter in their academic and social settings. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine what kind of difficulties children with stuttering have in primary schools in Konya province in terms of their academic and social activities. In this research, semi-structured interview method as one of the qualitative research methods was used because the researcher wanted to receive rich and detailed information on their difficulties which the children face in academic and social activities.  The data were collected by using semi-structured interview forms developed by the researchers with selected 32 students from the primary schools. The data collected for this research were analyzed with “Content Analysis Technique”. According to the results of this research, children with stuttering have considerable difficulties in the interactions of student and teacher, and student and student. Additionally, it has been observed that children with stuttering exhibited negative attitudes towards participating social and academic activities or taking part in social activities. In addition to these, other children have lack of  social interaction with those who  stutter. This attitude caused children with stuttering to fall behind in learning concepts and skills during their education.

Keywords: Stuttering, primary school, special education, children with stuttering, Difficulties of Children with stuttering, effective inclusion, inclusive classes.