tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12602489.post5363658549318950176..comments2024-03-24T15:07:18.773+01:00Comments on The Stuttering Brain: Book on choral singing and stuttering.Tom Weidighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02084153394215001999noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12602489.post-90893605756413060282011-03-22T18:20:06.367+01:002011-03-22T18:20:06.367+01:00I googled the topic as I am a Speech Pathologist w...I googled the topic as I am a Speech Pathologist working in the school system but have also had experience with an adult outpatient setting. Anecdotally, I have now seen several Asian (Japanese) males who have stuttered which led me to try to see if any cross-cultural studies have been done. Based on internet research, it would appear my experience has been coincidental. I will note that the Asian parents with whom I have spoken do not seem overly concerned and are quite accepting of their child's developmental dysfluencies (which is what I want from them) which would lead me to believe that cultural expectations are not at play. The adult males (small sample population of 3) have all had jobs where they don't need to engage in public speaking and have tried a variety of therapies. Also, it could be that since I live in Southern California and the location that I was working in had a higher Asian population that it was simply that the local population influenced my perception. So, no answers but food for thought!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12602489.post-34882162911702682512011-01-31T06:40:20.324+01:002011-01-31T06:40:20.324+01:00This subject is very interesting, as big part of s...This subject is very interesting, as big part of speech pathologists believe that stuttering rate is the same everywhere, and only a minor part believe that there are substantial differences in the rate of stuttering in different populations. Those who believe the rate is same everywhere, unfortunately, are not interested in cross-cultural studies. After asking people from different cultural background for many years about stuttering, I found that the differences in the incidence are absolutely huge. For example, you will find that a huge number of people from sub-Saharan populations had a stuttering problems (many have it as adults as well). On the other hand, you can hardly find a stuttering individual among the Chinese, or among Native Americans. Unfortunately, most of the "serious" speech pathologists are not interested to examine these cultural differences, instead they try to explain the published data on the existing differences by different methodologies used by different speech pathologists in different populations. But how come that experts, almost educated in Western Universities, always make the same "mistakes": they exaggerate the number of stutterers in sub-Saharan Africa (and African Americans), and grossly underestimate the number of stutterers among American Indians and Chinese populations. Fearing to face facts has never helped anyone in finding the real causes of any phenomena. I very much hope that many professional speech pathologists will read this blog and comment from their own experience on this topic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com