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From: Joe Kalinowski
Date: 10/5/00
Time: 12:57:21 PM
Remote Name: 150.216.147.209
This "assumes" that we "know" the agent of fluency enhancement under DAF or any fluency enhancement strategy. We have no idea --only speculations! I suggest that we do have behavioral, auditory, gestural and other phenomena that induce fluency, but we have no idea what "the agent of fluency is" --although we all speak with such certainty. . Propioceptive monitoring is nothing more than a "guess" (an educated guess--but not much more) as the agent of change in children or adults who stutter. We do not know what causes stuttering or fluency enhancement and that is why we are in the bind that we are today. How do you definitively treat something that you do not know "what is broken" or what to fix?
My colleagues and I suggest that stuttering isn't the problem but the ANSWER, much like a fever is the answer to an infectious disease state. You can treat the fever, BUT that just masks the problem. That is the cases with stuttering therapy at the current time--we are treating the symptoms and confusing it for the pathology.
I refer you to:
Kalinowski, J., Dayalu, V., Stuart, A., Rastatter, M.P, & Rami, M.. (2000). Stutter-free and Stutter-filled Speech Signals and Their Role In Stuttering Amelioration. Neuroscience Letters, 293/2, 115-118.