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From: Anelise J. Bohnen
Date: 11 Oct 2012
Time: 13:36:43 -0500
Remote Name: 187.107.57.39
Hi Barbara. Thanks so much for asking me these questions! Sahin et al. (2009) said that converting an abstract thought into a concrete motor activity takes approximately 450 millisecond. It is my understanding that neuromotor commands take some time between 250 mls to 450 mls to arrive at the mouth or the vocal tract. These ideas are not mine (I wish I had the structure for this kind of research). I do not know if I would actually call it a delay. I think that this is the necessary time that thought (which is abstract) needs to be transformed into a concrete motor act. Compare with writing. You think the same thing but it takes longer to write than to speak. Have you seen the paper in the link below? The authors found stutter-like behaviour in Flemish Sign Language users. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883184 In summary, this is probably how the brain works… Let me tell you that I had one adult years ago and now I have a girl that stutters at the beginning of a musical sentence. Almost all initials have repetitions. Even when singing well known songs like Happy Birthday. This is considered rare but not impossible. So, we do have a long way ahead of us. I do not know if there is some publication about the interaction of laryngeal activity and articulators. I have not reached this point as yet. I do all these investigations on my own expenses. At the moment I am not at the University, so I do not have any kind of sponsoring beyond my real need to understand what happens with my clients when they stutter. Why don't we think about this and try to develop something together? Best regards