Introduction
B. There is evidence that the "curse" stuttering appeared in Chinese, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian cultures more than 40 centuries ago. (Peters and Guitar, 1991)
C. Stuttering affects both sexes and people of all ages, from toddlers to the elderly. Stuttering is found in all parts of the world, in all cultures, and races; it is indiscriminate of occupation, intelligence, and income. (Peters and Guitar, 1991)
B. Disfluency: Refers to speech behavior and involves atypical, typical, normal, and abnormal behaviors. Children go through disfluency to achieve fluency. (Hugo Gregory)
C. Dysfluency: This involves the quantity and types of disfluent speech behaviors. Three components of the speech of a person who stutters includes the following:
D. Stuttering: Stuttering is characterized by core behaviors of abnormally high frequency and/or duration of stoppages in the forward flow of speech.
These stoppages usually take the form of
Secondary behaviors such as gross motor movements, eye-blinks, or verbal concomitants as a result of avoiding or escaping the core behaviors occur. Feelings and attitudes can also be an important component of stuttering.
Stuttering is viewed as a disorder of neuromotor control of speech influenced by interactive processes of language
production, and intensified by complex learning processes. (Peters and Guitar, 1991)
IV. Normal Nonfluency vs. Stuttering
Discussion of Politically correct jokes
I. History of Stuttering
Famous People who Stutter
A. Stuttering has been recorded as a problem since people have kept a record of their lives. For example. The Old Testament describes how Moses spoke through his brother Aaron because he was "thick of tongue." We assume Moses stuttered. (Eugene B. Cooper, 1979).
II. Definition of Terms
A. Fluent Speech: That which is promptly initiated, continuously forward flowing, easy, and a coordinated activity that involves respiration, articulation, and phonation. (Martin Adams)
III. Development of Fluency
(a). repetitions of sound, syllables, or one-syllable words,
(b). prolongations of sounds, or
(c). "blocks" of airflow and/or voicing in speech.
Handout A (Hugo Gregory) - (permission to put online not received, JAK)
Handout B (Peters and Guitar, 1991) - (permission to put online yet received, JAK)
V. Indications from the Research Literature
B. Genetic factors confirmed by research on concordance of stuttering in identical and fraternal twins (Howie, 1981).
C. Emergence of tremor-like motor activity in children who stutter may coincide with neural maturation and development of stuttering (Kelly, Smith, Goffman, 1995).
D. Syntactic complexity has been shown to increase stuttering in young children (Ratner&Sih, 1987) but have diminished effect on stuttering of adolescents (Silverman & Ratner, 1997).
E. Poorer performance in the right ear of people who stutter when doing dichotic listening tests (Curry & Gregory, 1969; Hall & Jerger, 1978; Green & Guitar, 1987).
F. People who stutter appear to have a more dominant right hemisphere than the left hemisphere of the brain (Guitar, CSHA 1997). Cognitive stress increases the number if dysfluencies in people who stutter( Miller & Watson, 1992; Blood, Blood, Bennett, Simpson, Susman, 1997).
G. See Handout C - (permission to put online not received, JAK)
H. See Handout D - Factors Which Disrupt Fluency - (permission to put online not received, JAK)
B. Teachers can recognize the stuttering problem through their education about stuttering and refer the student to a qualified speech-language pathologist (Stuttering Resource Foundation, 1988).
C. Tips for the teacher
(The following suggestions were provided by a high school client of the presenter, who wanted his teachers to know the following information. They were presented by the client on a video. Such an exercise may be adapted for your presentation as well. JAK)
Bernstein-Ratner, N. & Sih, C. (1987). Effects of gradual increases in sentence length on childrens disfluency. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 52, 278-287.
Blood,G.W., Blood, I.M., Bennett, S., Simpson, K.C. Susman, E.J. Subjective anxiety measurements and contical responses in adults who stutter. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 317, August, 1997.
Carlisle,Jock A. TANGLED TONGUE: Living With A Stutter (1985), Reading, MA: Addison - Wesley.
Cooper, Eugene B. (1979). Understanding Stuttering. Information for Parents. The National Easter Seal Society.
Crowe, T., Cooper E. (1977). Parental attitude toward and knowledge of stuttering. Journal of Communication Disorders;10, 4, 343- 357.
Dietrich, S., Gottwald, SR., Tardelli, MN., Guitar, B. (1997). Diagnosis and Treatment of Children Who Stutter: Practical Strategies. Stuttering Foundation of America New England Workshop.
Gregory, H. & Hill, D. (1980). Stuttering Therapy for children. Seminars in Speech, Language, and Hearing,1, 351 -364.
Guitar, B (1997). Workshop on Stuttering. Connecticut Speech-Language and Hearing Association.
Howie, P. (1 981). Concordance for stuttering in monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 24, 317-321.
Kelly, E.M., Smith,A., Goffman,L. Orafacial muscle activity of children who stutter: a preliminary study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research,38,1025-1036,1995.
Kidd,K. (1984). Stuttering as a genetic disorder. In Curlee & W.Perkins (eds.). Nature and treatment of stuttering (pp.149-1 69). San Diego: College-Hill.
Peters,T.J. and Guitar B. (1991). Stuttering: an integrated approach to its nature and treatment. Baltimore,MD: Williams & Wilkins.
Silverman,S.W., & Bernstein Ratner,N. (1997). Syntactic complexity, fluency, and accuracy of sentence imitations in adolescents. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research,40, 95-106.