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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 11 Oct 2004
Time: 12:03:50 -0500
Remote Name: 157.182.12.221
Dear Zeid, Good question. I would use your own situation, stuttering in three successive generations and two out of three siblings who stutter, to say, "Quite definitely, stuttering can be hereditary." Notice that I did not say, "Stuttering *is* hereditary." In many cases, stuttering occurs in families in which no other relatives stutter or ever stuttered. Nevertheless, stuttering far more often occurs in families with other stutterers than in families where no one else stutters/stuttered. There are a number of good research studies in this area, and virtually all of the good ones clearly document the increased likelihood of a person stuttering when parents, grandparents, or siblings stutter. You should also know that there is an interesting relationship between sex and heredity. Although more males than females stutter (about 3:1 among adults, and perhaps closer to 2:1 in young children), there appears to be a stronger hereditary influence in families where females stutter. One suggested reason for this is that, since in general females are more likely to recover from stuttering than males, those who do not may have more of whatever genetic influence promotes stuttering than those who recover. Therefore, when a female, e.g., your sister, has chronic stuttering, we could hypothesize that there is greater hereditary influence in your family than if no females stuttered (or continued to stutter). You also included cluttering in your question topic. Compared to stuttering, there is little published information on cluttering. We suspect, based on some anecdotal data, that cluttering might be as, or more, likely than stuttering to run in families. And stuttering as well as cluttering might be present in the clutterer's relatives. Since we do not have a widely-accepted definition of cluttering, it is impossible to speculate further or to compare across studies. Bottom line..... we cannot know with certainty whether or not cluttering is more or less likely than stuttering to run in families. Finally, you commented on differences in stuttering symptoms among your family members. I don't believe anyone has yet been able to predict with much certainty the specific symptoms potential stuttering relatives are likely to manifest. Individual patterns and experiences are so powerful that it would be extremely difficulty to sort out heredity from environment. Still, I could imagine a series of fascinating studies in this area, I hope this deals meaningfully with your question. Ken