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From: Anelise J. Bohnen
Date: 08 Oct 2012
Time: 17:12:03 -0500
Remote Name: 187.107.57.39
Hi Jessie I thank you for your question. You asked me "what is causing this activity"… Well, for quite some time ago, I stopped worrying about what causes stuttering. The scientific production published so far has not fully answered this question. And I, as clinician, do not have a way of knowing it, especially when brain activity is the focal point. My concerns are always related to "what can I do to be the best SLP for the client in front of me". This was my motivation when I begun to investigate laryngeal movements, some of them reported here. The list of references cited below the article may guide you in this process of a continuous understanding of what stuttering is all about, according to so many different theoretical standpoints. You will experience lots of doubts during your academic years and, believe me, along your journey as a speech pathologist as well. Doubts are good! They are intriguing, defying. They make us think, study, investigate, improve, create new ways of dealing with the challenges that each client presents us with. You mentioned aspiration before phonation. It may well be a pre-phonatory difficulty. It may also be what some call "lack of pneumo-phono-articulatory coordination". This means that breathing + phonation + articulatory movements are not produced in a coordinated way. I have seen several clients trying to phonate while inhaling which, as you may well imagine, does not work properly. Also, depending on how long the moment of stuttering is, the child may actually be out of breath. You may not be able to see inside this child's throat, but you can work step by step to make him/her understand how we do produce speech. I do not know this child's age, but if you are a good model of how to produce slow speech beginning with a short intake of air just before pronouncing the word, the child will follow you. Begin with simple words. Then increase to 2, 3 and so on. Please, keep me posted on what happens with this child and how both of you are progressing. Thanks again.