Evaluating the Experience of Stuttering and Quality of Life among Polish School-age Children: Psychometric Investigation with the OASES-S-PL

Abstract

The Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering (OASES; Yaruss & Quesal, 2006; 2016) is a comprehensive evaluation tool designed to support holistic, evidence-based diagnostic and therapeutic decision-making for children, teenagers, and adults who stutter. The OASES is based on the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (WHO, 2001) as adapted to stuttering by Yaruss and Quesal (2004; see also Tichenor & Yaruss, 2019). It enables diagnosticians to gather information about the totality of the stuttering experience, including its social, emotional, and cognitive aspects. It also allows a deep exploration of the quality of life of an individual who stutters. This paper presents the study results for the Polish version of the OASES-S (for school-age children, ages 7 to 12). The general purpose of the study was to develop the Polish translation of the OASES-S and then to evaluate the validity and reliability of that translation. The OASES-S-PL was evaluated based on a sample of 55 Polish-speaking school-age children who stutter. The study findings show that OASES-S-PL can be considered a high validity test. Given the limited number of evidence-based and standardized Polish diagnostic tools, the OASES-S-PL has important therapeutic implications for the treatment of stuttering in the population of polish children.