The Key Features Of Stuttering

L.R.’s fluency was assessed using the Stuttering Severity instrument- Fourth Edition (SSI-4). The SSI-4 is a norm-referenced assessment, that analyzes a child or adult’s stuttering severity. The SSI-4 assesses four speech behaviors of the examinee’s speech, (i.e., frequency, duration, physical concomitants, and naturalness of the examinee’s speech). A speech sample was observed through natural speech and a picture description task.

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

As a child, I felt overwhelmed with the adversity of stuttering. Not only did I feel linguistically handicapped, but I also had low self-esteem. While I still stutter, I have improved an ineffable amount and through the progression, I discovered my passion for the brain. I learned that the majority of the discrepancy between my speaking and others started with the brain. In addition, my father specialized in neuropathology at Vanderbilt Medical Center. He pushed my growing interest for neuroscience and mental health. With his presence, I also learned to overcome adversity and to always seek knowledge. Because of this, I attended the University of Tennessee’s Stuttering and Research Program to research about the interdependence between stuttering

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

Barry Yeoman in “Wrestling Words”, expresses the struggles of how stuttering becomes a setback in life. Stuttering may seem like an easy disability to overcome,but for those who struggle know the true devastating pain. Not being able to fit the cookie cutter perfect imagine of society not just physically,but also emotionally impacts stutters. Stuttering seems incurable,but organizations like the National Stuttering Project believe an end is reachable. Stuttering is not a life threatening disease,but a setback to thrive on.

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.

Rates of Mediated Technology Dependent Disorder is seen most commonly in teenagers and young adolescent. The gender differences are not significant, but there is a strong variance seen in different income-level, with people from low-income communities having the lowest rate, and the rate steadily increases as the income level goes up. The differences are also seen across different cultures, with individualistic cultures having the highest rates. Yet in recent years, collectivistic cultures are dramatically increasing their rates of people being diagnosed with MTDD.

The authors found that the group average at assessment 1 was 14.4% syllables stuttered and at assessment 2, this number was 6.7%. Half of the children reduced their stuttering by over 50% but two participants did not improve. In all of the self -reports, most children reported that they had decreased their stuttering severity, avoided less speaking situations and reported an overall satisfaction with their speech and quality of

Stuttering is a multifactorial fluency disorder. Motor movements, psychological, and emotional factors have all been shown to influence to progression or regression of this disorder in past research. In order to effectively facilitate fluency in People with a stutter (PWS) it is important to assess and understand all of these factors. The BigCAT is a test to determine the emotional attitudes and beliefs of a PWS regarding their disfluencies. In the article “The BigCAT: A normative and comparative investigation of the communication attitude of nonstuttering and stuttering adults” Martine Vanryckeghem and Gene Brutten assess the content validity of this assessment.

Communication/Language – speech and communication disabilities, fast speech, mild stuttering, disorganized speech, difficulty expressing themselves, difficulty speaking in social contexts

Due to the fact that stuttering is a well-researched disorder, many professionals have come up with different treatment plans. Nonetheless, we will only cover the 4 main treatment approaches, which are as follows: family system therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), fluency shaping (modification), and stuttering modification. Each of the therapy approaches listed above have their own unique way of helping individuals who stutter. The family systems therapy is used primarily for children who stutter. Through the use of the family systems therapy, the treatment focuses on the “family unit as a whole” (Fogle, 2013, p. 213). Therefore, the clinician takes into consideration how a child’s stuttering affects everyone in the household and what they can do to help minimize the

Stuttering may be triggered by being afraid or feeling insecure. For example, most people feel nervous before presenting in front of a class; therefore, the stuttering on a person will show more. They explained two types of stuttering: persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) and acquired stuttering. Developmental stuttering involves the expansion of stuttering while growing up. Acquired stuttering is gained after a traumatic brain injury. There are two different predictors in why stuttering occurs. The first one is triggered by conflicts children undergo through that has not been fixed, and the second one is learned behavior that has not been fixed throughout childhood years. When stuttering is simply a behavior, it is easier to treat. Respiration,

Stuttering is based on human nature and can be easily understood. It is characterized by abnormally high frequencies, and/or the duration of stoppages in the forward flow of speech (Guitar, 2006). While all the children in these videos seem to be nice kids, their disfluency holds them back from meeting social needs. Carolina is one of the children being documented in the video “Speaking of Courage”. Her family immigrated from South America to Canada where she attends grade school. After coming back home from school one day, she cried to her parents because she was unable to make any friends at school. Distraught over their daughters breakdown, her parents enrolled her in speech therapy where she worked and improved under a clinician’s supervision. Carolina’s speech was characterize

The Impact of Stuttering on Preschool Children & Parents was developed by Marilyn Langevin, Ann Packman and Mark Onslow in 2010. The purpose of theis assessment is designed to assist in deciding whether to enroll the child in treatment or to delay treatment to see if stuttering may resolve (Guitar, 2014). This is given through a survey basis assessment designated for the parents of preschool stuttering children (Guitar, 2014).

Throughout this 16-week course, I have learned about numerous types of communication disorders. Learning about all of these disorders brought my attention to the varying degrees of disorders and the effects they have on both children, adolescents, and adults. Nonetheless, the disorder that caught my attention the most was stuttering. The main reasoning behind this is because it’s a disorder that, although more apparent in children, has the ability to affect individuals of all ages. In addition, the etiologies behind these disorders are fascinating to me. Therefore, this lead me to wanting to do more research on this disorder which, subsequently, lead me to choose stuttering for my final project and paper.