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From: Nathan E. Lavid, MD
Date: 14 Oct 2009
Time: 23:28:51 -0500
Remote Name: 96.229.198.220
Hello Tom, I apologize if my answer to the posted question was not understood. I’ll expand on my answer here, but consider posting your queries as an independent post(s). This will allow myself and the other participants to specifically focus on your concerns rather than try to answer your questions in the context of the original question. Also, it will prevent your queries from being lost in the replies to the original question and possibly overlooked by other experts on this panel. To expand on my answer to RM’s question, How is stuttering started in a family? I assumed RM was referring to developmental stuttering, not acquired stuttering. Developmental stuttering is an endogenous and heritable condition, and as such is orchestrated by one’s genes. How a particular genetic make-up produces the phenotype, that is, the stuttering in the family, as demonstrated by the concordance studies of identical twins, requires some type of environmental influence. This influence could be a combination of many diverse environmental forces. No one knows. Though, once the gene(s) for developmental stuttering are found, there will be a better understanding of the protein(s) these gene(s) code for, and this information may shed some light why identical genomes may or may not lead to the emergence of developmental stuttering.