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From: Dennis Drayna
Date: 31 Oct 2005
Time: 18:21:28 -0600
Remote Name: 165.112.46.123
Hi Laura, The role of ethnicity in stuttering is under-studied. There are anecdotal reports of a high frequency of stuttering in some populations, such as the Ibo tribe in West Africa, and reduced frequency in some other populations, such as Native Americans. At the moment, we don't know if such reports are true, because answering these questions requires very large population surveys, which are expensive and time-comsuming. If any of these reports are true, then the question would become how much of this is due to their shared genes and how much is due to their shared culture. Once we identify specific genetic alterations that cause stuttering, we may be able to answer this question more clearly than we have been able to in the past.