It's just beginning. . . From: Judy Kuster Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:25:35 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Sheree, Stefan, and Dr. Li, Thank you for a fascinating account. It is hard for those of us with such easy access to information (in our libraries, on the internet, and through universities, hospitals, through the Stuttering Foundation of America, and self-help organizations) to imagine the enormity of the task of ultimately bringing services to persons who stutter in China. I am tremendously impressed with the dedication and the efforts being made so far. I think Stefan's focus on developing a strong self- help network will be very important for the many people who will not be able to afford and/or have no access therapy. And I think Dr. Li's efforts to bring information to his colleagues and to raise awareness about stuttering is wonderful. Last year our local NSSHLA chapter shipped several boxes of books about communication disorders to Bulgaria. Realizing that translation issues are major barriers, would a similar collection of such items be of any use at this time for Dr. Li or his associates in China? Re: It's just beginning. . . From: Sheree Reese Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:26:04 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Thanks for the kind words, Judy. I've written to Dr. Li and asked him what materials he would find helpful (and manageable in terms of translating) and will post his response when it comes. Re: It's just beginning. . . From: Stefan Hoffmann and Li Shengli, Beijing Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:27:18 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments We are happy to find so encouraging words as you wrote them. In fact it is a giant task to develop awareness and means of therapy here in China. The biggest obstacle is the lack of people's insight into the problem. At the moment we are translating some leaflets of the SFA, and after this is done, neat printouts will be available to be distributed. This is a first small project. Anything additional to this would surpass our today's personnel and time ressources, so that we today are fine with the material we got. Later more info will be welcome from abroad. A chinese saying goes: "To achieve great things, start with the small". Encouragement from abroad is already a great achievement. Thank you! Stefan Hoffmann, Li Shengli Beijing, China Chinese doctoral student From: Joe Kalinowski Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:27:50 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments During my studies at University of Connecticut and at Haskins Laboratories, I worked with a number of Chinese doctoral students--primarily in linguistics-- but a couple in both linguistics and speech-pathology. You might want to contact the students or research staff at Haskins Laboratories to start some sort of interaction with those Chinese students here in the States who have been working in the field of linguistics and/or speech-pathology. These individuals would know your language (at least one of the many of your nation) and the culture. You must remember that I left there in 1991 and many have moved on, but they have left e-mail addresses and means of contact.. Just an idea.. http://macserver.haskins.yale.edu/haskins/STAFF/staff.html Re: Chinese doctoral student From: Sheree Reese Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:28:16 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Thank you for the suggestion, Joe. It might prove very helpful. Dr. Li gave me the gift of a copy of his textbook, and I could use some help with the translation back to English. In addition, we are discussing coauthoring an article in Chinese, so I would probably find this contact very helpful with this project. Re: Chinese doctoral student From: Stefan Hoffmann Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:28:55 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Hi Joe, it is very important to have contact persons abroad from CHina. A network is still nonexistent here, so that people here in Beijing sometimes do not know of an activity in Shanghai, as happened last MAy. Best is to have people, who sometimes come back here to CHina and report about latest research developments and therapy methods. By the way, due to a business trip I will not be able to participate in the ISAD 99 "Self-help Test Run" here in Beijing with Prof. Li's patients. We plan to do it in November then. Stefan stuttering in China From: Pete Amberg Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:29:26 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Hello Sheree. My name is Pete, a Comm. Dis. grad student at Minnesota State Univ, Mankato. Your article had me thinking of areas of Speech Pathology and stuttering that I honestly never gave much thought to. That being stuttering in different languages. What are the most common types of disfluency in Chinese? (prolongations, part/whole word reps, etc.) Are there any common types? Another startling thought is the incidence rate compared to how much knowledge there is of the subject. It is discomforting to know that many PWS are not only not receiving any services but are not even aware of where to go for help. Unfortunate also is the attitudes towards PWS and jobs. Those attitudes are expressed in all places in the world, unfortunately, and todays society has many barriers to break down to allow opportunities to all. Good luck to Stefan and his work with his self-help group. Pete Re: stuttering in China From: Sheree Reese Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:29:51 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Hi Pete, Thanks for the comments and good question. There obviously hasn't been much research on the topic there but I would expect that the characteristics are not much different from those with which we are familiar . We do have a body of research available on cross-cultural attitudes towards communication disorders and information about specific communication characteristics and issues for Asion speakers but I haven't seen any on patterns of dysfluency. Perhaps someone else can add information here. Sounds like a good project to discuss with Dr. Li. Re: stuttering in China From: James Au-Yeung Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:30:18 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments On the topic on cross-linguistic study on stuttering. We are currently carrying out such studies at University College London. So far, we have limited speech recording on Spanish and German stuttering samples and have done limited analysis on them as compare to our theory of stuttering built around English phonology. We have major problems in acquiring speech samples and I have spend the past year just doing when I have graduate students from Germany and Spain to analyze the data. We are currently writing up the results of our findings in both German and Spanish. In discussion with Nan Bernstein Ratner in the summer, we wish very much to set up a database of speech from PWS from different language background for research purpose and we are presently actively seeking recording in Japan and Hong Kong for Japanese and Cantonese recordings. Currently, we are also comparing stuttering behavior of both Spanish and English in bilingual speakers to see the language influence in a single production system. James Au-Yeung Dept. of Psychology, University College London james@psychol.ucl.ac.uk Re: stuttering in China From: Pete Amberg Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:30:53 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments James, I know your studies are not complete, but what kinds of similiar/different behaviors are you noticing? Also, who observes the behaviors- Spanish speaking only, bilingual, or English speaking only clinicians? Pete Re: stuttering in China From: James Au-Yeung Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:31:20 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments The main difference we have found so far is that Spanish PWS have less dysfluencies in content words that English PWS while function words are more or less the same. The study is trying to test our theory on stuttering published in JSLHR, Au-Yeung, Howell & Pilgrim (1998) and Howell, Au-Yeung & Sackin (1999) where a developmental trend is also observed in stuttering on function and content words. In answer to your second question, the dysfluencies were located by a native Spanish speech scientist from Spain who also speak English. We are at present planning to test the judgment & location of dysfluencies in Spanish by non-Spanish speaking English speakers and compare them to judgment by native Spanish speakers and maybe Spanish L2 speakers. This work is to study if a language model is needed in an automized system for detecting dysfluencies [work presented at IFA at San Francisco]. James Au-Yeung Re: stuttering in China From: Stefan Hoffmann, Beijing Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:31:49 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Hello everybody, I might add a short note. My experience after learning 7 languages (Eng, Fre, Lat, Span, Russ, Jap, and Chinese) is that my own pattern of stuttering stays the same although there languages offer various kinds of pronounciations. I have always problems with voiceless "h" and multiple konsonants. People saying that the chinese "singing" of their language would prevent from stuttering, is not really a true story. Your work in London seems very interesting to me. You may meet Dr Li next year at IFA congress in Denmark. Stefan Brave New World From: Suzanne Danforth Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:32:20 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments To the authors: I was most impressed by the description of Dr. Li and colleagues' desire to identify stuttering as a legitimate entity in a near absence of literature. In addition, the ability of the team at the Rehab Medicine Department of Capital University of Medical Science to shake off cultural presdisposition toward stuttering as stigma is commendable. Re: Brave New World From: Sheree Reese Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:32:46 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Thanks for your comments, Suzanne...I agree that Dr. Li's efforts (and accomplishments) are quite remarkable. ShenYang Center For Speech Fluency From: Han Yan Wei Date: 10/24/99 Time: 11:33:55 AM Remote Name: 134.29.30.79 Comments Your achievements in stuttering-correction is observed by web-site. We have sincere intention to cooperate with you in stuttering-correction for speech fluency. So we send our telephone number, address to your place. We are looking forward to your confirmation. Brief introduction of our center: It's a relatively large professional stuttering-correction center in China. It runs as long as ten years. We have served thousands of patients. Our medical team is quite well-educated. They're professions, postgraduates and graduates. Our quality of treatment has enjoyed distinguished honour from all media. Moreover, we have published several academic papers on the national journals. ShenYang Center For Speech Fluency, China Address: No.7 You Hao Street Shen He District Shen Yang, China Postcode: 110013 Tel: 0086-24-22511194 Fax: 0086-24-88423163 hanyanwei@sina.com Re: ShenYang Center For Speech Fluency From: Sheree Reese Date: 10/24/99 Time: 7:51:56 PM Remote Name: 152.163.201.46 Comments Thank you for telling us about your center. I will try to ensure that Dr. Li receives the information. I would also like to communicate with you and will contact you soon.