Finnish KiddyCAT and BigCAT differentiate stuttering individuals from fluent speakers.

Research with the “Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter” (KiddyCAT) and “Communication Attitude Test for Adults” (BigCAT) in several countries have shown that children and adults who stutter have a more negative attitude toward speech compared to their nonstuttering peers. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of an authorized Finnish adaptation of the “Communication Attitude Test for preschool and kindergarten children who stutter” (KiddyCAT-Fin) and “Communication Attitude Test for Adults” (BigCAT- Fin). Moreover, the cut-off scores were defined for clinical use for both self-report tests. In this research, 86 preschool-aged children (41 of which stuttering) completed the KiddyCAT-Fin with 12 statements and 109 adults (29 of which stuttering) completed the BigCAT-Fin with 34 statements. The mean scores were descriptively close to those of the English version of both measures.

Children and adults who stutter had a significantly more negative communication attitude than fluently speaking children and adults. Internal consistency and re-test reliabilities were high for both measures. To conclude, the Finnish versions of the KiddyCAT and BigCAT differentiate stuttering people efficiently from fluently speaking individuals based on their communication attitudes.