From: Mark Irwin
Date: 08 Oct 2012
Time: 07:10:11 -0500
Remote Name: 121.45.12.87
Bob, Thanks for your reply. While I understand your rationale for your definition, unfortunately I am still unclear as to its usefulness. Please allow me to continue the role of the devil’s advocate in the hope of bringing further understanding (at least to me). I believe this is as much about semantics as it is about speech pathology highlighted by your reference to the Smith (1999) article. It is fortunate to note the smoke coming from the volcano is not also called “volcanic activity”! As it stands now for speech pathology the point being made is that it is useless to study stuttering to study “stuttering”. So while your definition describes the entirety of stuttering experience can we agree it be more useful if we developed words (labels) to reflect what we all now understand specifically about the broad condition now called “stuttering” that until recently has not been well recognised. As your article implies not all people who use covert stuttering (word avoidance, substitution) have social avoidance behaviour. And not all people who have overt stuttering use covert stuttering or have significant social avoidance. Since these differences are fundamental to accurate public awareness messages and to increased specificity when researching and treating “stuttering” (no doubt part of your thinking in developing OASES) then would you not agree it would seem sensible to use agreed labels to highlight these differences. It is in this way that we could finally give to “stuttering” what a term like Anorexia gives to skinny ie bring concise clarity. Until then it could be argued that describing someone has having a severe stutter is potentially confusing. Does it mean severe dysfluency, or significant psychosocial impact, or both. Could you comment. Cheers, Mark