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From: Bob Quesal
Date: 10/17/02
Time: 11:45:19 AM
Remote Name: 143.43.201.67
Tell me what you think....
Drs. Ingham:
This is a very interesting paper. You’ve taken a very complex topic and presented it in a way that is easy to understand. I particularly appreciate that you have been careful not to over-interpret the meaning of these findings and have addressed the issue of “cause and effect” in this type of research. I have long felt that for any type of physiological research in stuttering to be most meaningful, it would have to have some predictive value - that is, we’d have to be able to see the “difference” in individuals before they started to stutter because without that, we will never truly know whether many of the differences we are seeing are a cause or an effect of stuttering. Nevertheless, this type of research is very important and very compelling and I appreciate this contribution to the ISAD conference very much.
I do have one question relating to this research. If there truly are differences between individuals who stutter and those who don’t, what might that say about the “curability” of stuttering, at least for some individuals? As you are probably aware, one of your colleagues has been stating quite strongly that “all stutterers are capable of normally fluent speech.” In fact, a letter he sent to me which states that (among other things) is the topic of my paper in this ISAD conference. To support his position, he freely cites much of your work. Given that the research that you present here suggests that stutterers may be functionally -- and perhaps structurally - different from nonstutterers, would you agree with the statement that “ALL stutterers are capable of normally fluent speech?”
I'm just curious. ;-)>
Thanks in advance.
Best Wishes, Bob Quesal