The Effects of Stuttering on Systolic Blood Pressure

Abstract

Contrary to most hypotheses that suttering and anxiety are positively correlated, some evidence suggests that stuttering reduces stress. This investigation was undertaken to determine the effects of stuttering on level of systolic blood pressure. Sixteen adult male stutterers were measured before and after stress (electroshock) in each of five treatments: high stuttering, low stuttering, chewing, finger tapping, and time. Systolic blood pressure for the high-stuttering level was significantly lower for 15 of the 16 subjects than were the values for low stuttering, chewing, finger tapping, and time. These results indicate that stuttering can reduce stress-elevated systolic blood pressure.

Stuttering, emotions, and heart rate during anticipatory anxiety: a critical review

“…It is interesting to note that the results of this study led the author to the conclusion that "stuttering acts as a cathartic activity relieving the anxiety of the stutterer"-a logical conclusion if regarding reduced heart rate as a sign of reduced anxiety. A similar interpretation was suggested by Dabul and Perkins (1973): They found that a difficult speech task involving stuttering reduced the mean systolic blood pressure in a group of persons who stuttered. Dabul and Perkins concluded that this result "is congruent with the psychodynamic implication that stuttering fulfills a need" (p. 590), but the authors did not exclude alternative explanations, like physiological effects.…”

Autonomic arousal in adults who stutter prior to various reading tasks intended to elicit changes in stuttering frequency

“…Some between-group comparisons reported PWS to have increased resting cardiovascular activity compared to PWNS (Brunner and Frank, 1975;Gillette, 1938, 1939), whereas others did not find significant differences (Ritzman, 1943;Golub, 1953;McCroskey, 1957;Walker and Walker, 1973). Studies reporting on speech-related cardiovascular activity have also produced inconsistent findings (Dabul and Perkins, 1973;Van Riper and Milsen, 1939;Ickes and Pierce, 1973). More contemporary and comprehensive studies have compared PWS to PWNS on measures of HR and SC, as well as other related autonomic measures prior to, during and after various speech and non-speech tasks (Peters and Hulstijn, 1984;Weber and Smith, 1990).…”