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From:
Date: 14 Oct 2011
Time: 18:39:19 -0500
Remote Name: 187.36.5.131
Dear Maria This is an excellent discussion. And I intended a short answer, but, as you can see, I did not achieve this goal! As it is in the text, I based my research on descriptions of Stuttering published by the World Health Organization (ICD 10), American Psychiatric Association (DSM IV TR) and ASHA. I considered them "official" descriptions not only because they are accepted worldwide, but also because, as you said yourself, there are different opinions about what stuttering may be. See, I use the term description because the in depth cause of stuttering is yet to be established. And as far as I know, we can only "define" and conceptualize a pathology when its core cause is established. Up to this point, then, and because of this, we will find many descriptions of stuttering. A careful observation of the three definitions gathers that stuttering is described as a break in the flow of speech, characterized by atypical movements that interfere with the individual's communication. From these definitions, it is possible to say that stuttering is a problem that occurs at the brain's language area. Why do I say language, instead of speech and or fluency? Is there speech without language? Is there fluency without spoken language? But it is possible to have language without speech. When you write, you use language. I have seen hands that "stutterer" when writing and when using sign language. There are some articles that discuss different types of stutterings, subtypes even. Some are in the processing/planning area (no speech involved) and others are more directly involved in production. A recent publication by Lu, C., et al. (The neural substrates for atypical planning and execution of word production in stuttering, Exp. Neurol.(2009),doi:10.1016/j.expneurol.2009.10.016) revealed different neural substrates for atypical planning and execution in stuttering speakers as well as altered interactions between them. So, stuttering begins in the language area, before thought is turned into a ruptured speech. And keep in mind that nobody stutters in every word 100% of the time. I transcribed 12000 spoken words. From these, only 1326 were stuttered. The frequency of stuttering was 11%. This means that 89% of the 12000 words were FLUENT. I concluded that "the results POINT TO stuttering as a disorder of language", because the regularity of the found characteristics of stuttered words is not the regularity of each individual's speech, but appears to be the regularity of language. Thanks for reading! Anelise