Some Personal Variables Associated with Speech Disorders among Elementary and Intermediate Students

Abstract:
    The current study aims at exploring (1) differences between primary and intermediate Saudi male students in speech disorders; (2) the relationship between speech disorders and parental styles, anxiety, speech phobia, and depression; (3) differences in the sample in these variables; and (4) the predictability of speech disorders by the former personal variables. The total number of study sample was 726; six-grade primary students (N = 354) and third-grade intermediate students (N = 372). For the end of achieving the study objectives, the study comprised the following tools: Anxiety Scale, Speech Phobia Scale (2018), Observation List, Beck Depression Scale (Arabic version by Ghareeb, 1988), and Parental Acceptance/Rejection Scale (Arabic version by Salamah, 1988). The findings indicated statistically significant correlations in the three types of speech disorders (sound production disorder, pronunciation disorders, and fluency disorders), individually and collectively, in favor of primary students. The F-value in parent rejection was 5.14, and in anxiety was 8.8 in favor of primary students. Additionally, no statistically significant correlations were found between parental acceptance, depression, and speech phobia. Moreover, a positive statistically significant correlation was found between the total score for speech disorders and both speech phobia and anxiety. No correlation, however, was found between speech disorders, on the one hand, and parental acceptance/rejection and depression, on the other. The results showed varying abilities to predict the variables of personality disorders when talking to the students in elementary and middle school.
Keywords: speech disorders; parental styles (acceptance or rejection); speech phobia; anxiety-depression - depression primary and intermediate students—predictable.