Abstract
Stuttering anticipation is endorsed by many people who stutter as a core aspect of
the stuttering experience. Anticipation is primarily a covert phenomenon and people
who stutter respond to anticipation in a variety of ways. At the same time as anticipation
occurs and develops internally, for many individuals the “knowing” or “feeling” that
they are about to stutter is a primary contributor to the chronicity of the disorder.
In this article, we offer a roadmap for both understanding the phenomenon of anticipation
and its relevance to stuttering development. We introduce the Stuttering Anticipation Scale (SAS)—a 25-item clinical tool that can be used to explore a client's internal experience
of anticipation to drive goal development and clinical decision making. We ground
this discussion in a hypothetical case study of “Ryan,” a 14-year-old who stutters,
to demonstrate how clinicians might use the SAS to address anticipation in therapy
with young people who stutter.
Keywords
Stuttering - anticipation - Stuttering Anticipation Scale - clinical decision making
- stuttering treatment
