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From: John Harrison
Date: 10/5/02
Time: 5:11:00 PM
Remote Name: 152.163.188.162
Huang,
I would like to compliment you on your excellent paper, the perceptiveness of your observations, and the doggedness with which you have worked to overcome your stuttering. You are truly a role model for others who are struggling with this problem.
I’d like to make a few comments on some of the things you said. You mentioned that “There is a very important characteristic in common among the overwhelming majority of stutterers: stutterers never or seldom stutter when talking to themselves (soliloquizing), regardless of pitch, loudness, duration, inflection and intonation.” -- This becomes easier to understand if you regard chronic stuttering...not primarily as a speech problem...but as the person’s discomfort in communicating his or her thoughts and feelings to others. Obviously, when you are alone, there is no communication process at work, so the speech blocks do not arise. Of course, speech is a part of this process, but ONLY a part. I keep emphasizing that if you want to understand chronic stuttering, you have to step back and look at the entire stuttering system, and this involves looking at your emotions, perceptions, beliefs, intentions, physiological make-up, and your learned blocking behaviors.
You say, “I agree that chronic stuttering may be related to some genetic predisposition,” -- I think that genetics plays a part, but not in a way that most people think. I do not think that there is such a thing as a stuttering gene, because, from my experience, blocking (which is the form of stuttering we’re talking about) is a LEARNED behavior. You learn to block as a survival strategy. It does not happen to you. It’s just that when you forget you’ve learned this and get out of touch with the fact that you’re doing it, it SEEMS like it’s happening to you. But back to genetic factors -- SLP Libby Oyler has identified in studies she’s done that, while 20% of the general population can be characterized a “highly sensitive person,” that figure rises to an amazing 83% for those who stutter. I’m sure that genetically-driven physiological factors like this contribute to the blocking strategies we develop, because as highly sensitive people, we are more quickly and dramatically impacted by stimuli and by everything that happens to us.
You say, “Only by unremitting practice, can the memory of fluent speech gradually replace of painful memory of stuttering. In the same time the biochemical materials in memory of fluent speech are produced and stored in the brain. In doing so, the memory of fear is eliminated little by little over a long period of time. When the painful memory of stuttering is completely replaced by the memory of fluent speech, the psychological obstacle is removed successfully, and recovery of chronic stuttering ensues.” -- A part of the brain that plays a big role in this is the amydala, which is where your emotional memory is stored. This is one of the oldest parts of the brain and is most concerned with your survival. Understanding how it works and how it is able to initiate a fight-or-flight response is important to understand the panic responses and adrenaline survival strategies that underlie the speech block.
You say, “In summary, I believe most chronic stutterers have the potential to speak fluently. However, my conclusion is based on reasoning and limited to a few successful cases. Its reliability has to be confirmed by strictly controlled clinical trials.” -- That will be difficult, in that clinical trials do not lend themselves to addressing a holistic problem such as chronic blocking/stuttering. I think the answers will come from the excellent reporting, trial and error experimentation, and sharing of experiences that you have demonstrated. In fact, the field of gestalt therapy, which was based, not on theory but on reportage and observation, is a good example of this.
Anyway, congratulations and thanks for an excellent paper.
John Harrison