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From: Luc De Nil
Date: 17 Oct 2007
Time: 16:16:47 -0500
Remote Name: 142.150.170.252
Dear Jill - you pose some very interesting observations and questions. Yes, it is not uncommon for patients with neurogenic stuttering to show improvement over time. As a matter of fact, for some patients, the stuttering may only be present for a few days. Helm-Estabrooks, who has published in this area, has suggested that transient stuttering in stroke may be most likely in patients who experience a first stroke and who have only unilateral lesions. Chronic stuttering according to her would be more likely in patients with multiple strokes who also have bilateral damage. This is an interesting observation but one that needs to be confirmed on more patients. In my experience, chronic neurogenic stuttering is not always associated with more severe neurological impairements, but one has to very careful with generalizing such observations from a few single patients. To your other question, yes neurogenic stuttering has been reported in very young children. One report is about a 2-year old child who experienced multiple strokes. The questions of course is whether this is neurogenic stuttering or developmental stuttering. There is no way for us to know unless we know more about neurogenic stuttering. Also, if the two types of stuttering are closely related the distinction may be a bit artificial. But if the disorders are distinct, this would be a rare but very interesting population to research. Keep up your interest!