BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Extensive research documents ubiquitous negative attitudes towards stuttering, but when and how they develop is unclear. This non-experimental, comparative study examined US and Turkish preschoolers to explore the origin of stuttering attitudes cross-culturally. METHOD: The authors compared stuttering attitudes of 28 US and 31 Turkish non-stuttering preschoolers on English and Turkish versions of experimental prototypes of the newly developed Public Opinion Survey on Human Attributes-Stuttering/Child (POSHA-S/Child). Children first watched a short video of two stuttering avatar characters and then answered oral questions about stuttering. Parents completed a demographic questionnaire. Differences in the US and Turkish POSHA-S/Child means were calculated using the Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: Attitudes of the US and Turkish children were remarkably similar. Children rated most of the items negatively but also rated some items as neutral or positive. They held relatively more negative attitudes towards traits and personalities of children who stutter yet relatively more positive attitudes towards stuttering children's potential. CONCLUSION: Stuttering attitudes in children appear to be partly independent of culture.

TEMA: as pessoas gagas são freqüentemente consideradas como sendo tímidas, nervosas, introvertidas e assustadas. Muitos gagos são submetidos a situações constrangedoras em decorrência da ridicularização ou da discriminação e preconceito ilegal. OBJETIVO: até o momento não existe nenhum instrumento, largamente aceito e padronizado, para medir as atitudes públicas sobre a gagueira. Em 1999 foi iniciado o Projeto de Atitudes em Relação à Gagueira (IPATS) que foi uma iniciativa para desenvolver um instrumento de avaliação de opinião, que foi chamado de Pesquisa de Opinião Pública dos Atributos Humanos (POSHA). MÉTODO: a experiência aqui apresentada compara os resultados obtidos em três países - Brazil, a Bulgária e a Turquia, como representantes da América do Sul, da Europa e do Oriente Médio. Os participantes foram agrupados segundo seu país e língua de origem. Todos os questionários foram respondidos na língua de origem do participante. RESULTADOS E CONCLUSÃO: esse estudo piloto sugere que algumas diferenças de atitudes entre os participantes podem ser explicadas pela influência da interação entre a nacionalidade, cultura, etnia, religião e língua materna. A contribuição específica de cada um desses componentes não pode ser determinada. A continuidade do projeto envolverá a análise comparativa entre os resultados dos países de língua materna não inglesa e os de língua materna inglesa.

BACKGROUND: people typically regard stutterers as shy, nervous, introverted, and fearful, a so-called "stuttering stereotype". Many stutterers are also subjected to teasing and bullying or to illegal discrimination. AIM: currently, there are no widely-accepted, standardized instruments used to measure public attitudes toward stuttering around the world. Accordingly, an International Project on Attitudes Toward Stuttering (IPATS) initiative was launched in 1999 to develop such an instrument, named the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes (POSHA). METHOD: this study compares selected results from three groups of adults from countries in South America (Brazil), Eastern Europe (Bulgaria), and the Middle East (Turkey). Respondents were pooled into three groups according to place-of-residence variable by country and a survey language variable. All of the respondents completed the questionnaire in the primary language of their countries. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: this pilot study suggests that some attitude differences among respondents may be explained by an interaction of national, cultural, ethnic, religious, or language differences, although the relative contribution of each component cannot be determined. In a subsequent tier of survey analyses, ratings by these respondents will be compared with the ratings of respondents from other countries completing the survey in English.