Nonword Repetition Assessment of Children Who Stutter: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Scoring Procedures

Purpose: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to assess the scoring procedures and methods used for assessing the performance of children who stutter (CWS) in nonword repetition (NWR) tests. / Method: Five computerized databases and gray literature/unpublished data were searched for eligible studies involving reports that compared NWR performance between CWS and children who do not stutter. Effect sizes across studies and sensitivity values of the different scoring procedures were obtained. / Results: Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the meta-analysis. The findings showed that combined methods involving joint online and offline scoring and scoring procedures that calculated the percentage of number of words correct were as reliable as the more popular offline scoring procedure. / Conclusions: The clinical and social implications of using NWR tests to assess phonological processing in CWS are discussed. Recommendations are made concerning how future studies can improve the quality of procedures used in NWR testing.