The Family History of Developmental Stuttering: A Scoping Review.
Yuto Sato, Mizuki Aoki, Shoko Miyamoto and 1 others
PMID 42671853WHAT IT FOUND
A scoping review found that published family history rates for stuttering range from 20.0% to 90.9% because studies count relatives differently.
Family history remains a useful risk factor to ask about, but no single published rate should be treated as the definitive figure.
Key findings
01The reported proportion of people who stutter with a positive family history ranges from 20.0% to 90.9% across studies, and this wide variation is primarily attributed to inconsistent definitions of family history (scope of relatives, lifetime versus current stuttering) and data collection methods.
02Studies that included relatives who had ever stuttered (lifetime definition, n = 10) reported a higher mean family history rate (58.71%) than those using a current-only definition (n = 2, 53.3%) or those in which the definition was not clearly reported (n = 7, 42.39%).
03Most studies (12 of 19) did not report the mean age of onset of stuttering, which the authors note is one of the most critical factors for predicting persistence and likelihood of recovery.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
No risk of bias or quality appraisal was performed on the included studies; the authors state the findings should be read as a map of the research landscape, not a synthesis of the strongest evidence. Geographic concentration: most studies came from the United States and Australia, limiting generalisability to non-English-speaking and non-Western populations. Only English-language publications were included, which may exclude relevant work in other languages. Methodological inconsistency across included studies (different scopes of relatives, different stuttering definitions, different data collection methods) makes direct comparison of rates difficult. Twelve of 19 studies did not report mean age of onset, a key clinical variable for predicting persistence. Interrater agreement was only moderate (Cohen's kappa 0.441 and 0.549), partly reflecting ambiguity in whether studies reported extractable family history data. Small numbers in some comparison categories (e.g., only 2 studies used a current-only definition for relatives) limit the strength of the descriptive comparisons.
Declared interests
Funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP25K00007). The authors declare no commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as potential conflicts of interest. ChatGPT and Gemini were used solely for English language editing and proofreading.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the 20.0% to 90.9% range as a true estimate of how often family history appears in stuttering. The spread reflects inconsistent definitions of which relatives count and whether recovered relatives are included, not genuine variation in the underlying rate.