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From: Bailey Levis
Date: 11 Oct 2005
Time: 21:53:34 -0500
Remote Name: 70.108.34.192
Hi Robert, I am a grad student working in Dr. Drayna's lab. First I just want to say that the studies we are doing on Pakistan and Cameroon are still underway. It is true that genes on different chromosomes appear to be involved, and like deafness, there is probably not just one gene involved. As far as the male to female ratio, in children it's about 1:1. The difference is that girls seem to recover more often than boys. About 80% of children who stutter do spontaneously recover. Why more girls than boys? I don't know. As for stuttering being a recessive or dominant trait, it's not so simple as that. To quote Dr. Drayna, "...most stuttering isn't inherited in a noticeable pattern..." This is one of the reasons that stuttering is considered a complex genetic trait, and it is one of the challenges we face in identifying a gene involved in stuttering. I hope this has answered some of your questions. Bailey