MMPI-2/A assessed personality differences in people who do, and do not, stutter

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2 and MMPI-A) was administered to 60 subjects who stutter (SWS) and to 60 matched subjects who do not stutter (SWNS). Computer scored results indicate a statistically significant (p = .017) greater average tendency toward psychosocial-emotional disorder in SWS than in SWNS. Also, mean T-scores in 24 of the 93 scales/subscales assessed were statistically significantly higher for SWS than for SWNS, especially in personality characteristics related to schizophrenia, depression, healthy concerns-somatic complaints, psychasthenia, anxiety-fearfulness, and self-doubt/self-depreciation. Overall, these findings tend to support the tendency toward psychopathology (TTP) pole of the etiologic bipolar stuttering threshold hypothesis (Treon, 1995, 2002). In accord with this hypothesis, average MMPI-2/A T-scores for SWS were within the normal range of psychosocial-emotional functioning.