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From: Ellen-Marie Silverman
Date: 26 Oct 2005
Time: 08:39:13 -0500
Remote Name: 64.12.117.5
Research I have published with Katherine Van Opens in 1980 showed that elementary classroom teachers in a suburban public school in Wisconsin were more likely to refer a boy for speech therapy who showed symptoms of a stuttering problem than a girl presenting identical symptoms. Yet, the same teachers were no more likely to refer a boy than a girl for speech therapy who presented symptoms of a voice problem, an articulation problem, or a language problem. This suggests that the incidence of girls with stuttering problems reflects under-reporting for the problem in girls due to the perceived differing social-cultural implications of stuttering problems for boys and girls. So, it seems the reported ratio may not accurately reflect the difference in incidence by gender. Ellen-Marie Silverman