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Re: prognosis and severity

From: Nan Ratner
Date: 10/11/00
Time: 2:55:45 PM
Remote Name: 129.2.25.203

Comments

You posed a lot of questions, so I think that is why no one jumped in right away. Let me try to lump your questions into a few areas for a fast answer and then we can continue to discuss. Severity of stuttering in young children is not easily related to prognosis, according to relatively recent data collected by Ehud Yairi and his colleagues (one source: Journal of Communication Disorders, 1996). In general, prognosis can be affected by a number of variables (see discussion in American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Vol 6, No. 2, 1997 for a round-table discussion). Factors such as age of onset, family history, language functioning and specific trends in the nature and frequency of behaviors over the first year post onset are potential factors in predicting chronicity, as is gender (boys do not recover as well as girls). Severity, as measured by pure frequency or presence of secondary symptoms, has not yet been shown to have strong prognostic value. You may want to hunt up the collection of articles in the AJSLP volume for more detailed musings on this. Hope this is OK for starters.

Nan


Last changed: September 12, 2005