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From: Nan Bernstein Ratner
Date: 13 Oct 2010
Time: 22:19:17 -0500
Remote Name: 71.178.51.75
I respect these comments, Kevin, but in the course of the legal case that the orphans brought against the State of Iowa a few years ago, many "experts" in our field viewed video depositions of the orphans as adults. Some did seem to have speech anxiety or hesitation. None would be called a stutterer. The settlement was reached in response to human subjects violations, rather than actual documented harm to their speech. I think the message should be that this was a badly designed and even more unethical study by any standards. Can you provide feedback to someone to make them speak "hesitantly" and without confidence? Create social anxiety? Yes - I probably could do it if I incessently teased a child about having ugly front teeth, as well. But you won't get stuttering as we know it, and that is what I think the question is directed at. Nan