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From: Nan Ratner
Date: 20 Oct 2004
Time: 18:27:21 -0500
Remote Name: 152.163.101.7
This is an interesting and tough question. Quite a bit of research suggests a high degree of comorbidity (co-existing conditions) among the communication disorders in children that include fluency, language and articulation. Much of this work has been done by survey, and so may not be as reliable as widespread (expensive!) testing of children who present with any of these conditions. There is a fairly respectable body of research (I can give you references if you'd like) that suggests subtle differences and ability levels in a variety of areas of language processing in PWS. These studies do NOT use standardized tests such as we see in clinics to identify people with frank language impairments. Combined with this is an additional body of literature that suggests that people who stutter may have unbalanced language abilities. This has yet to be fully explored in young children near onset, but it seems from a couple of studies that children who attempt to produce language at above-age-level difficulty (and with less developed abilities in some other areas of language knowledge) may be at least a portion of early stutterers, and that those who continue in this path are more likely NOT to spontaneously remit from the stuttering pattern. All this is complicated, and there is a body of research literature that I can refer you to if you'd like - contact me at nratner@hesp.umd.edu