The Effects of Stuttering

For some, a conversation is scary and hopefully avoidable with a smile while others don't think twice about the way something is said. In the article "The Everyday Anxiety of the Stutterer," by Joseph P Carter, he explains what it's like living day to day with a stutter.

Hoagland begins his essay with an analogy to help the audience understand his stutter in a clear and visual way. He likens his handicap to “trying to run with loops of rope around your feet” (Hoagland

After 60 years of stuttering, Hoagland reminisces about his struggles and triumphs to overcome his stuttering. While attending school, he learned that, “Life can become a matter of measuring the importance of anything you have to say.” He felt that it was

His conversations are limited with strangers; it is only with close friends and family that Hoagland is able to hold a clear and fluid discussion. His handicap was a factor of low self confidence. Furthermore, some of his scariest moments as a stutterer were as a father when his daughter was learning to speak and thought that she was supposed to stutter, and also when he had to have to give a speech at a wedding. Nonetheless, Hoagland refused to let his stuttering control his life. He is able to get in to the Army by telling them that he only stuttered because he was “nervous,” and even goes on to become a college professor.

The most important information in this article is that there are significant neuroimaging, lesion, pharmacological, and genetic studies that provide information on stuttering, however the etiology and pathophysiology of stuttering remains incomplete. The article explored research on persistent developmental stuttering (PDS), which manifests in children between the ages of 2 and 4, in which boys have a higher rate of persistence than girls. Moreover, the authors provided features of the development, fluency-inducing conditions, associated symptoms, genetic etiologies, and neural correlates. Genetic studies on PDS demonstrated a genetic correlation, although no single gene has been identified, characterizing PDS as a polygenetic disorder. Additionally, brain imaging studies have revealed abnormalities in the role of the cerebellum, the anterior cingulate cortex (AAC), the supplementary motor area, and the right frontal operculum. During silent and oral reading tasks pre- and post-treatment, people who stutter had greater cerebellar activation and abnormal right lateralization as oppose to people who do not stutter, which could be related to a reduction in automaticity in articulatory movements and an increase in sensory or motor monitoring. Further discussion of cortical regions provided a connection between the limbic system and sensorimotor cortex, in which AAC activation during silent reading tasks decreased following fluency-inducing treatment. PDS has also been associated with the reduction of white matter below the left sensorimotor cortex, while acquired neurogenic stuttering (ANS) is associated with lesions in subcortical brain regions. Additionally, ANS can occur during a head injury in which the midbrain and subthalamic nucleus are affected by rotational forces producing diffuse injuries in basal ganglia pathways. ANS has also been associated with the thalamus in which patients who had stimulation of the thalamus and corpus callosum presented with speech

I entered the field with an interest in fluency and participated in the National Stuttering Association in Queens, New York. The stutter started in my teens and faded away in my early adulthood.  I researched speech language pathology and came upon all the different aspects of this field since the definition of speech pathology is broad. I knew I wanted to specialize in stuttering when I was a teenager. This changed when I was in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program in my undergrad. This program exposed me to different classes and observations of communication disorders in a variety of age ranges. This exposed me to adult population as well in which I gained an interest because of their lack of tantrums and willingness to gain back

One person, a young teen guy, even mocked me. I tried not to let it go too deeply under my skin. I had to keep reminding myself that this was just temporary, just for the assignment. I definitely can’t imagine what those who have or have had a stutter for the majority of their lives go through. Just one short experience of having to stutter made me feel so small. I can’t even begin to fathom how people with an actual stutter feel about themselves, especially when people treat them so cruelly for something that they can’t help. Overall, stuttering made me feel slower and more self-conscious. I felt like I was being judged solely on the stutter and nothing else. I felt as though all the eyes in the food court were on me, even though they weren’t. I felt slower in the sense that it took me longer to say what I wanted and for some reason, I had to deliberate more as to how I would say what I wanted to. When we watched the kids stuttering during the lecture last week and describing how they felt, I could sympathize with them. After having to experience stuttering first hand, I would definitely say that I developed empathy for them and anyone else with a

This documentary focuses on the journey of seven different individuals who are considered people who stutter. I believe it is important to note the statistics of the prevalence of stuttering mentioned in the video. The statistic states that 1 out of 100 adult and 5 out of 100 children are people who stutter. This prevalence is important for speech therapists to become informed and equipped to treat this population. This documentary gives great insight on the struggles and successes of this population.

The Stuttering Foundation provides a free online resources, services and supports those who stutter and their family members along as the support of the research. This foundation is proudly a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and classified as a private operating foundation, defined in section 4942(j)(3). The first and largest nonprofit charitable organization in the world, that reach to over a million people annually to improve the treatment of stuttering. The stuttering foundation also offer extensive training programs for any professional in this

Only half of the group labelled as stutterers actually showed signs of stuttering. As the experiment took place, the normal speakers were given positive encouragement while the group labelled stutterers were given negative reinforcement and were lectured about being extra careful when they spoke. Teachers and staff were also asked to reinforce the label of “stutterer.” The type of research used was an experiment

The Johnson’s Speech Therapy Experiment was conducted by Dr. Wendell Johnson, whose purpose was to prove preexisting theories about stuttering wrong. During the time, people commonly believed that genetics was to blame for stuttering and nothing could be done about it. However, Dr. Johnson hypothesized that children become more worse once they are labeled as a stutterer. To conduct the experiment, twenty-two children were forcefully chosen to participate without even being informed about what the study was about. From the twenty-two participants, half of them were placed into a positive therapy group while the other half were placed into a negative therapy group. Children in the positive therapy group were complimented and cheered on for their

In 1939 an experiment now known as the “Monster Study” was conducted on 22 orphaned children by Wendell Johnson, a very influential speech pathologist at the University of Iowa. In this experiment the orphaned children were divided up into two separate groups. One group was given positive speech therapy, in which they were praised for their fluency. The other group was given negative speech therapy. They were belittled for every speech imperfection and told that they were stutterers. Many of the normal speaking children who were subjected to the negative speech therapy experienced negative psychological effects and some developed lasting speech impediments.

Verbatim: The Lidcombe Program is a parent implemented behavioural treatment that uses methods known as verbal response contingencies for stutter free speech and unambiguous stuttering. (Packman, 2014) The program also requires measurements of stuttering severity from both you and I, which will allow the application of treatment goals consisting of 2 stages. Stage 1 is to achieve no stuttering or nearly no stuttering, and then stage 2 requires the maintenance of no stuttering or nearly no stuttering for a long period of time, which are both guided by the measurement of your child’s stuttering severity. You are also required to come in to clinic once every week so I can monitor your child’s progress and answer

Most of these therapies also help address the anxiety a person who stutters may feel

The following is a summary of a journal article titled, “Is Parent -Child Interaction Therapy Effective in Reducing Stuttering?” by Sharon Millard, Alison Nicholas, and Frances Cook. This article was published in the Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research in June 2008, to report the findings of a research conducted on the effects of parent-child interaction therapy approach (PCIT) on children who stutter. It was conducted to add more research and evidence to the efficacy of using the PCIT approach (Millard, Nicholas, & Cook, 2008 p 636).