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From: Darrell Dodge
Date: 10/18/03
Time: 2:22:22 AM
Remote Name: 198.81.26.11
Hi Bob:
Thanks for your reply. I agree that the challenge is to demonstrate and prove the importance of those "unmeasureable" aspects of stuttering. This has been done in some other areas (such as post traumatic stress syndrome) but not in stuttering yet. For example, I wonder if a research paper on PTSD that did not consider the fear/threat conditioning system and just focused on cognitive aspects could be published in a serious research journal. (Not to imply that stuttering and PTSD are the same, of course.)
I used to think there was enough evidence in the experimental work that had already been done to indicate that there is something missing in the mostly speech-motor or linguistic explanations of stuttering. It's becoming clear to me that this just isn't going to happen without some stuttering-specific research that applies experimentally-proven concepts that are becoming widely accepted in other fields.
It's going to take more than pointing out obvious things like the apparent gulf between the useful concept that stuttering tends to increase with linguistic complexity and the fact that an isolated "hello" is the most difficult word for many people to say.
Thanks for reminding me of the importance of cognitive filtering . . . and for the lessons from your mentor.
- Darrell Dodge