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From: Ellen-Marie Silverman
Date: 08 Oct 2006
Time: 11:43:43 -0500
Remote Name: 64.12.116.136
Hello, Greg, I'm so glad to see that you are contributing to an area that my late, ex-husband Franklin Silverman and I (as well as Oliver Bloodstein and others) considered extremely helpful toward understanding stuttering in oral communication. Wendell Johnson, in fact, in a definition of stuttering he proposed in the 50's opened the door to the possibility that stuttering in speech may be only one member of a class of motor behaviors that can be corrupted by uncertainty, or hesitancy, at some level(s). His definition: "(Stuttering is) an anticipatory, apprehensive, hypertonic avoidance reaction." Your efforts to further compare stuttering in manual communication with stuttering in spoken communication adds light (and some useful heat) to our understanding of stuttering. Thank you. >>> Relatedly, you might be interested to know that when I (someone who has a stuttering problem) began learning manual communication a few years ago, I had considerable difficulty both with ASL and finger-spelling because remebering individual signs and finger positions and feeling any sense of ease attempting to communicate manually seemed to elude me. Unexpectedly, I had the notion to change my handedness from right-dominant to left-dominant. Upon doing so, my accuracy, speed, and enjoyment while practicing and communicating in class increased. Before then I considered myself ambidextrous, but, after that experience, I think I may be one of those people whose handedness may have been changed as a child from left to right, and that that my have caused me to have some dificulty expressing myself through language, even music based on my experience studying piano and classical guitar. (I caused my cat to run screaming from the area when I practiced guitar.) With both guitar and piano, I never quite got past concentrating on correctly playing one note at a time. Needless to say, my playing was hesitant and not very musical at all. Don't think you need to respond to all this, Greg. But you might want to cogitate over it. Have fun. Best, Ellen-Marie