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From: Ellen-Marie Silverman
Date: 15 Oct 2006
Time: 10:43:57 -0500
Remote Name: 64.12.116.14
Hello, Stephanie, I'm not sure I am a qualified responder in this forum since I currently am not a professor and haven't been since 1986, but I am someone currently and actively involved in matters concerning stuttering problems. I chimed in here to add to Ms. Ratner's response that seems to be a variable in whatever ratio inbalance there may be between males and females regarding the incidence of stuttering problems. In 1980, an undergraduate student of mine, Katie Van Opens, and I published a paper in Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools (one of the journals ASHA publishes), entitled "An Investigation of Sex Bians in Classroom Teachers Speech and Language Referrals" Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 11, 169-174). We compared the responses of classroom teachers in several midwest, suburban public school systems to written descriptions of a child's speech, language, voice, and stuttering problem, where one description identified the child as female and an indentical one for each problem identified the child as male. For only stuttering, was there a statistically significant difference between responses based on the gender of the fictional child. More of the teachers were likely to refer the boy with the stuttering problem we described than the girl for speech-language services. To me, this suggests that these teachers may have thought the social, economic, and other consequences of a having a stuttering problem were greater for males than females. So, while it may be fruitful to look within individuals, i.e., genetics, neuro-functioning, etc., for an explanation of a gender difference in stuttering problems, I, as have others before me, think we also need to explore cultural and societal, as well as familial, influences on the development of stuttering problems. I think you asked a key question, and I hope I have given you some information to help you find your (and, maybe, our) answers. Ellen-Marie Silverman