Reappraisal of the literature dealing with the personality, attitudes, and behaviour of the parents of stuttering children suggests they are characterized by low social dominance, and points to the mothers of beginning stutterers as particularly permissive and/or passive regarding the shaping and control of the developing child's behaviour. While instructional passivity appears to persist in the mothers of chronic stutterers, the emergence of specific punitive attitudes is also noted.
The possible roles of instructional passivity and punitive parental reactivity in the precipitation and maintenance of stuttering behaviours are considered briefly.
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