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From: J. Scott Yaruss
Date: 10/12/00
Time: 8:14:25 AM
Remote Name: 205.201.41.224
Hi Gunars --
While I agree that this is an important piece of research, I would be VERY cautious about reading too much into the little blurb you read in the ASHA Leader until we have the actual research report. The author of the article in the Leader did a fine job of summarizing some of the key points about this line of research, but the tone was a little too sensational for me...I understand why she needed to do this in a publication such as the ASHA Leader, but such sensationalism in reporting (e.g., the leading dramatic question at the beginning of the blurb that doesn't actually relate to the content of the study) leads to exactly the type of enthusiasm you exhibited. This is not a bad thing; still, it is not the type of thing we want to build our research and theoretical plans around.
Let's, as Woody suggested, add this piece of knowledge to our slowly-growing body of knowledge about stuttering, and proceed cautiously from there.
In terms of whether this indicates that stuttering is a speech motor disorder...Roger Ingham wrote a very interesting paper that appeared in the book by Cordes & Ingham (1998) on whether we should be viewing stuttering as a speech motor disorder...some valuable questions are raised, and this research may be interpreted differently based on that chapter.
Finally, although I will reserve complete judgment until I have a chance to read the article (and even then, will reserve complete judgment pending further study...), I find it VERY interesting that the patterns of activation during imagined stuttering were similar to that during real stuttering. To me, this says that people USE the same areas associate with stuttering, not that these same areas CAUSE stuttering -- this is a critical difference, and depending upon the interpretation, can lend support for the notion that stuttering is not a motor DISORDER, but rather a disorder that INVOLVES the motor system in rather unique ways. We always knew that the second statement is true; I think it is valid to question whether the first statement is true.
I personally will look forward to reading the actual research report, and will try not to get caught up in media hype until that time.
My 1/2 a cent... S