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From: Luc De Nil
Date: 17 Oct 2007
Time: 16:10:17 -0500
Remote Name: 142.150.170.252
I think you pointed to a very critical but also very complex issue - it can be very hard to differentiate stuttering disfluencies (if that is what they are) from other occurrences of disfluencies in speech as a result of other communication disorders. The way we handle it is by using a relatively standard definition of stuttering disfluencies (short element repetitions, prolongations and/or blocks) to determine if stuttering may be present. We then look at other communication impairments that the patient is experiencing and see if these impairments can account for the disfluencies. If yes, we would be less likely to maintain the diagnosis of stuttering. If not, we feel much more confident in our diagnosis. We realize this is still an imperfect diagnostic criterion, but we hope to be able to finetune it over time.