From: Reuben Schuff
Date: 04 Oct 2012
Time: 22:05:11 -0500
Remote Name: 107.15.91.178
As an adult who stutters I believe you hit many important points in your definition. I especially think that framing the definition from the point of view of the speaker, rather than the listener is valuable. I couldn't agree more that the emotional and cognitive reactions, and the difficulties in communication are as central (if not more) to the disorder than the disfluencies. Stuttering doesn’t have a monopoly on emotional, cognitive and communication difficulties, but as you point out the disorder is much more than what a listener gets to see and hear. Having an accurate definition of the disorder is important if we are going to work in an effective manner to make improvements. The more popular textbook definition seems to say that if the behavioral aspects of disfluencies are not visible/audible, then the disorder of stuttering is not present. Thus, the focus can often become the overt behaviors, neglecting of the rest of the iceberg. Thanks for diving deeper.