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Re: References/Pointers to Theories of Stuttering

From: Vasu Parameswaran
Date: 08 Oct 2006
Time: 22:27:41 -0500
Remote Name: 69.248.127.181

Comments

Hi Greg, thanks for your response and this discussion. This discussion overlaps significantly with our discussion on your article on stuttering in sign language! Interesting (and useful) that you laid out the requirements of a scientific theory before getting into the details of your forthcoming answer (which I will await). Anyway, I could not resist noting here, based on your response, that one of the clearest accounts of the scientific process I have read anywhere, is given by Wendell Johnson in his book "People in Quandaries" - not sure if you've read it. In that book, he hypothesized that there is a reversal of the order of abstraction, in effect, making a stutterer "project" his concept of stuttering from the word-level to the physical-level. Based on this theory, he predicted that there would be no stuttering to be found among American Indians, given that they do not have a word for it (this we know turned out to be false and Johnson was a little too premature in his Eureka). Nevertheless, I would claim that his intention was to stick to the scientific method although he faltered in the application of it. Similarly, Sheehan posited his approach-avoidance and role-conflict theory for stuttering. A central tenet of the theory was that embracing the "stutterer" role begets more fluency while embracing the "fluent" role begets more stuttering. One can argue that a "prediction" made by this theory is that voluntary stuttering should reduce real stuttering. This is certainly true. His theoretical framework also suggested the therapeutic approach of embracing the role of a stutterer, stuttering as openly as possible (Incidentally, I have personally done both of these and benefitted immensely in more earned fluency, better conditioning to pull out of stutters and less fear). Anyway, I am not sure what he did in his later years - did he improve on this theory? did he find flaws in it requiring a revision of the theory? Did others build on it, or find it no longer credible, or is it just that it fell out of "fashion" to think about role-conflict and approach avoidance? These were some of my related questions. Anyway, I will await a more detailed response from yourself (and others of course).


Last changed: 10/23/06