| Sumario: | Background: Several experiments have investigated phonological encoding in children who stutter (CWS) using different phonological processing skills and yielded equivocal results. Studies examining phonological processing skills in Arabic‐speaking CWS are scarce and focused on discrete tasks. The current study's aim was to (1) compare the performance of Egyptian Arabic‐speaking CWS on a variety of phonological processing tasks to that of children who do not stutter (CWNS) in order to get a broad picture of children's phonological encoding skills and (2) examine the association of phonological processing deficits, if any, with stuttering severity. Methods: This case‐control study was executed on 92 monolingual Arabic‐speaking Egyptian children between the ages of 4 years 6 months to 6 years 5 months, including 50 typically‐developing children and 42 children diagnosed with stuttering. Phonological processing was evaluated in both groups using a battery of tests that included assessments of phonological awareness, memory, and retrieval. Results and conclusion: Results revealed that Arabic‐speaking CWS demonstrated significantly lower performance on all phonological processing skills than normally fluent children. However, such performance was not related to stuttering severity. Sex differences were detected where females demonstrated better performance than males. Phonological encoding deficits might be implicated in stuttering development. Evaluation of phonological processing skills should be integrated in the overall assessment of CWS. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subjectSeveral experiments in different languages (e.g., English, Persian, Arabic, and Kannada) have explored phonological processing in children who stutter (CWS) over individual tasks or a combination of tasks as a means for investigating phonological encoding and yielded equivocal results.What this study adds to existing knowledgeArabic‐speaking CWS demonstrated significantly lower performance on all phonological processing skills than normally fluent children.No relation was found between performance in phonological processing and stuttering severity in CWS.Females who stutter show better performance in phonological processing than males.Phonological encoding deficits might be implicated in stuttering development.What are the clinical implications of this study?Evaluation of phonological processing skills should be included in the overall assessment of CWS.
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