Reverse stuttering "cures"

[thaddeus]

A couple days ago, i was sitting and thinking, would it be easier to make someone develop a stutter and then find an underlining cause?
Alot of emphasis has been put on treating stuttering while a stutter is present, with not much success, so why not try going the other way with a non-stutterer and make them stutter. Many stutterers have just simply developed a stutter from horrifying experiences or something, so would studying the stutterers that developed a stutter later on in life, be a new way to go in finding what causes it and treat it ? Taking what they find from the simply developed a stutter stutterers and puting it to work with non stutterers and then taking it to the other stutterers :rolleyes:
-Random thoughts from a random guy lol

[takinyede]

A couple days ago, i was sitting and thinking, would it be easier to make someone develop a stutter and then find an underlining cause?
Alot of emphasis has been put on treating stuttering while a stutter is present, with not much success, so why not try going the other way with a non-stutterer and make them stutter. Many stutterers have just simply developed a stutter from horrifying experiences or something, so would studying the stutterers that developed a stutter later on in life, be a new way to go in finding what causes it and treat it ? Taking what they find from the simply developed a stutter stutterers and puting it to work with non stutterers and then taking it to the other stutterers :rolleyes:
-Random thoughts from a random guy lol

Hey man is your real name Thaddeus? so is mine. I thought it was an extinct name. Do people ever ask you if your from Greece?

[Jaykon]

interesting. but then what about the fact that scientists believe stuttering to be genetic?

[thaddeus]

Hey man is your real name Thaddeus? so is mine. I thought it was an extinct name. Do people ever ask you if your from Greece?

Yea my name is Thaddeus ppl dont ask if im from Greece but im not shy to mention my name is Greek, im pround of my name its rare WHOOT

[thaddeus]

interesting. but then what about the fact that scientists believe stuttering to be genetic?

Good question, i believe its genetic too but the brain has some part in it some where.

[grantM]

Look at this link about an experiment that taught orphans to stutter

Monster Stuttering Study (http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/0601/11.php)

[strat728]

Here's my belief: Stuttering is purely genetic based and occurs in the early stages of speech development. It becomes a learned behavior and almost a habit, so that stutterers can never "learn" or are not equipped with the tools to learn how to manage fluent speech. The problem with inducing someone with stuttering is that first of all there is no such thing as a standard stutter. We all technically have different forms of disfluent speech which have been lumped together as "stuttering" by the medical world. Therefore, to say that there is a specific target or region for where stuttering exists is complete farce because what I believe is that there is a genetic component to stuttering, but it becomes veiled by our learned behaviors and anxieties.

[kobe4three]

stuttering is definately genetic..i have 3 family memebers that also stutters...basically stuttering is cause by an chemical imbalance in the brain... dopamine and gaba

[grantM]

There is a strong genetic link involved with stuttering but it is not a 100% rule.

[Mullen]

I've read several accounts of the Monster Study that cl that the speech pathologists were unable to induce stuttering in any of the children.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293623,00.html

It just left the severely damaged, both psychologically and socially.

[thaddeus]

Ahem(clears throat)
I believe 100% that stuttering is genetic no dought about that(i have fam who stutters), I had a long discussion about it on here a cpl months ago.
Technically every stutterer that stutters is a stutterer but what i was saying is, for the people that DEVELOPED A STUTTER LATER ON IN LIFE SAY 12 OR OLDER, why dont they ask them the circumstances to which there stuttering was triggered. For the people that developed a stutter at a much younger age say 6 or younger its hard to find out there circumstance, from them.
What is the difference b/t the ppl that developed a stutter later on in life verse younger?

Stuttering is genetic i think ,but the brain and environment have something to do with it. We have many genes that are simply dormant so why all of a sudden would the stuttering gene turn on in a child later on in life? thats the question.
In order for genes to be active the conditions have to be right, so what was the condition of a person who developed a stutter later on in life?

Stuttering doesnt only occur in the early stages of development because after 6 i think,the brain is pretty much set when it comes to the speech aspect.
So what about the people that developed a stutter later on?

There is a stuttering gene but the brain tells it when to activate ,by the circumstances around i think.

[grantM]

Hmm research does not say that there is a genetic link for all cases. For some perhaps but not for all. Stuttering cause is very much up in the air at the moment because of the lack of commonality between stutterers

[Violet]

I believe it's mostly genetic... although i don't have any known relatives which stutter so that kinda goes against that argument :p

I wonder if when i have children + grandchildren they will stutter? Seeing as i dont have any relatives that stutter? :confused:

[grantM]

Well just remember there is some evidence to support a gentic link in some cases. Also more men than woman stutter. There are no cultural difference either as far as I know.

[Adrian]

There is documented evidence that head injury and stroke can also cause stuttering. I believe that there must be some sort of brain abnormality for us to stutter. This abnormality may be genetic or brought on by physical trauma. People with "normal" brains are just not wired to chronically stutter.

[squiggles]

I pulled a quote from on of John Harrison's essays.
I think its very interesting.



Question: Why does chronic stuttering seem to run in families?
Doesn’t this prove that it’s genetic?

Answer: Not at all. What people don’t take into account is that, not
only negative genes, but negative emotions, perceptions,
beliefs and psychological games are also passed along from
one generation to another. Attitudes, values and behaviors are good “time travellers”
within cultures and within families. When the components
of the Stuttering Hexagon exist within a family, it is only a
matter of time until circumstances bring these components
together in the life of one individual in a way that causes
them go “critical” — to borrow a term from nuclear physics.
Once the components organize themselves into a self-
supporting system, you have the first appearance of speech
blocks.

[Leys Geddes]

In 1939, there was a researcher in the States who was convinced that stammering had a psychological cause, related to having had bad treatment when young. So he got hold of some orphans, put them into control groups, and gave some of them a hard time. None of the ones who had had a hard time developed a stammer, but several developed psychological problems. It has become known as the Monster Study.

Check this out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Study and various other places.

Thankfully, we now know that the root cause is a neurodevelopmental disorder - which emerges in childhood as a symptom that the brain's neural circuits for speech are not being wired normally.


LEYS

[Adrian]

Leys,

Unfortunately, we all don't know that it is neurodevelopmental disorder. Just look at some of the postings on this very group. People in our own still believe stuttering is caused by psychological issues, child like beliefs, or a misaligned hexagon despite all the evidence to the contrary. How can we expect the public in general or, here in the US, the insurance companies to know this too, when we can't even get on the same page in our own ?

Adrian

[Geoff]

I didn't start stuttering till around age 14, and none of my family or friends who I grew up with stuttered as far as I know. So I don't understand how I could of "learned" this habit, when there was never a source to learn it from in the first place.

I believe that I have dysfunctional speaking mechanisms, which have subconsciously became habit causing my continued stuttering. (Like the way I breathe, tensing my abdomen etc)

[Thomkatt]

I think stuttering has been largely viewed as a psychological issue since the 1930's. It's nice to see the professionals looking at some other angle (nuerological) because the psychological one certainly isn't progressing my life any.

[Leys Geddes]

Hello Adrian!

Like you, I expect, I am saddened to see how little of the true nature of stammering is understood by so many, even on a site like this, where people are taking a real interest in the subject.

Our various national stammering associations, our health experts and our media, have simply not got the message across. And the reason for this is that the national associations have no money. And the reason they have no money, is that there is virtually nobody going out into the Outside World, trying to get the truth across, and seeking financial, moral and physical support for our cause. Unless we get our message across to the Outside World, nothing will change.

Stammering is a low interest condition largely because people who stammer are reluctant to talk - and so non-stammerers do not understand how it can affect lives profoundly. So despite massive improvements in awareness of other disabilities, such as mobility, stammering is still treated by many as a kind of a joke.

This is exactly what I am saying in my most recent SpeakingOut2 video on YouTube, 'Stammering needs a louder voice'.

Although I am no chicken, I still have my marbles - and I desperately want to find other, younger, people who are prepared to stand up, speak out and carry on trying to overcome ignorance and prejudice in order to change the world for people who stammer.

It's not impossible, and it will take generations. I remember the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics; it has taken forty years to overcome at least some of that prejudice and for a mixed race man to be sitting in White House.

So it's not impossible.


LEYS