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.
Stuttering; Evolution; Social Perception
