The Stuttering Brain

Tom, write posts.

2012-05-24T05:13:00.594+02:00

Tom, write posts.

I just would like you to know that i am a great ad...

2012-05-14T19:01:45.036+02:00

I just would like you to know that i am a great admirer of you and your work here. you are a living proof that a stutter can do a lot of great things. you give me/us hope

Thanks man

and of course, no response to your comment. surpri...

2012-05-14T17:50:28.460+02:00

and of course, no response to your comment. surprise.

May he rest in peace, I just found your blog and h...

2012-05-07T03:15:28.876+02:00

May he rest in peace, I just found your blog and have been reading few posts.. Thanks for posting Tom

I just found this blog and your homepage...I haven...

2012-05-06T21:31:23.930+02:00

I just found this blog and your homepage...I haven't read a lot so far but I'm really happy that I found somebody who's committed to this topic! thanks a lot for your effort!

Fabian B.

I agree, but there isn't much publishing going...

2012-05-05T00:57:02.050+02:00

I agree, but there isn't much publishing going on with stuttering research right now. Drug research on stuttering is now focused on finding the underlying cause with less going down blind alleys with drugs like pagoclone and zyprexa. Drayna published another linkage study back in December that Tom didn't pick up, but they're still years away from finding the actual gene (my guess is group of genes like in 2010 will be found every 3-5 years). There are some brian imaging studies, but really no breakthroughs. There also isn't much Tom hasn't already said.

I rarely find your blog informative or exciting an...

2012-05-04T19:18:43.557+02:00

I rarely find your blog informative or exciting anymore, you seem to focus on stories with very little relevance, not talking about this one in particular but in general I don't see the appeal of your blog anymore

I think it was the medicine that made him commit s...

2012-04-28T20:37:28.491+02:00

I think it was the medicine that made him commit suicide not the stuttering itself. i really feel sad about him. I also used some medicines to cope with my stuttering. It really helps i was almost %100 fluent but it had serious side affects, i started to have memory loss, sexual disorder, i was always tired and sleeping too much so i quit, when i quit i get into depression and at some point i did not care if iam dead or not. before this drug i was always baffled when i heard someone committed suicide it seemed impossible for me to do it but after what i go through with the medicine i understood how those people feel. So if you ever think about taking drugs consider it twice. it really messes up your brain chemistry and i assure you that thats much worse than stuttering

Thank you for great posting Second Hand Vans

While I cannot speak intelligently about speech-la...

2012-04-28T07:16:47.471+02:00

While I cannot speak intelligently about speech-language pathology, I can speak anecdotally. I agree with Tom that questioning a connection here is appropriate.

As a person who loves a spouse who happens to stutter, I know deeply that he is one of the most gifted with language acquisition and use. His native language is a Norwegian dialect and next the formal Norwegian, Bokmål. He speaks English in such a way that I often forget it wasn't his own language. He also speaks German and other Scandinavian languages.

He is neither an academic nor terribly interested in language (or speech-language pathology!) yet at times he is almost unable to speak due to stuttering.

I say this somewhat lightheartedly, but I think the real problem to be addressed is the fact that some people cannot hear through a speech defect to the real message a person is trying to deliver. There is definitely a connection there ;)

Very sad news Tom, it's a reminder how frail t...

2012-04-28T05:38:44.928+02:00

Very sad news Tom, it's a reminder how frail the human mind can be. RIP Holger

2012-04-27T09:16:25.908+02:00

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

nice a blog.

2012-04-27T09:15:25.220+02:00

nice a blog.

2012-04-27T09:14:46.602+02:00

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

So maybe the current term "speech and languag...

2012-04-26T13:25:46.898+02:00

So maybe the current term "speech and language therapist / pathologist" is incorrect? Should it just be "speech therapist / pathologist" as it was years ago before they added the "and language"?

"Also, why is it that artificial nonsense sen...

2012-04-26T13:18:39.412+02:00

"Also, why is it that artificial nonsense sentences produce less stutter blocks than sensible sentences?"

I would say it's because nonsense sentences do not involve much communicative stress. There's little or no pressure on the speaker to be understood.

"They need to explain why greater linguistic complexity increases stutter rates."

I have always thought that greater linguistic complexity increases the stress on the speech system.

>> Content words like garden, painting and j...

2012-04-21T09:30:26.345+02:00

>> Content words like garden, painting and janitor have no more emotional content than function words like if, but, and hers.

That is very likely not true.

By themselves no words have an emotional "content" per se.

It's our interaction with our internal and external world that creates associations between concepts / words and emotions.

And everyone has different associations.

Anon - linguistic complexity refers to length of s...

2012-04-20T19:37:52.084+02:00

Anon - linguistic complexity refers to length of sentence, combinations of phrases and clauses, etc. Even word length increases stutter rate. Emotion may also have an effect, but the difference between content and function words seems independent of emotion. Content words like garden, painting and janitor have no more emotional content than function words like if, but, and hers.

The difference is that the stutterer may be able to recognize and relate emotional content to stuttering outcome, but very few stutterers have any idea that they stutter more on content than function words.

Jon has really good points, but I've associate...

2012-04-19T01:34:36.853+02:00

Jon has really good points, but I've associated this with the emotions the words have rather than linguistic complexity. For example, I've always thought we stutter less on profanity because of the emotions associated with the words.

From the abstract, the authors seem to assume that...

2012-04-19T00:35:26.583+02:00

From the abstract, the authors seem to assume that a general 'linguistic deficit' is required for there to be a causal linguistic element to stuttering. However, just as the symptomatic motor failures of stuttering are intermittent, rather than integral, a linguistic failure could also be intermittent. An intermittent failure to pass correct word images to the motor control processor could produce a failure that mimics a motor control failure. And inn order to rule out linguistic factors, they need to explain why stutter blocks are more common in content as opposed to function words (at least in adults) and why greater linguistic complexity increases stutter rates. Also, why is it that artificial nonsense sentences produce less stutter blocks than sensible sentences?

I think there is a link between switching from lef...

2012-04-13T11:17:48.181+02:00

I think there is a link between switching from left to right hand, and stuttering, but I think that it takes a "trigger" to set off the stuttering.

I was naturally left handed, but had it beaten out of me in school (age 4-5 on). All was fairly normal until, age 12, I had 4 teeth extracted under a general anesthetic. The very minute they woke me from the operation I could not talk, and suffered from stuttering for the subsequent 20 years (like many stutterers I now have it under control). I think forcibly switching from left to right hand sets the scene for stuttering - a traumatic event can then set it off.

Just my opinion, but I have had 30+ years to try to analyze the sequence of events.

RF

I have been on 2.5mg of zyprexa since 1999. About...

2012-04-09T21:46:52.339+02:00

I have been on 2.5mg of zyprexa since 1999. About two years later, I slowly began to notice neurological side effects....sleep apnea attacks, stroke like numbness and yes, stuttering as well. Zyprexa clearly screwed up my neurology, and worst of all, despite informing my prescriber over the years of these effects, she did absolutely nothing about it. I just recently took the liberty of weaning myself off of it by 90% (since the clinician wouldn't take the matter seriously), and sure enough the sleep apnea has vanished. So nice now not to wake up in the night to find myself in respiratory arrest. The stuttering is still a problem, and may be with me for life. I would be curious if anyone else has encountered similar problems.

All I can say is "malpractice!" Looks like it's time to call the lawyer.

Methylphenidate (Ritalin) reduces my stuttering by...

2012-04-06T20:39:08.914+02:00

Methylphenidate (Ritalin) reduces my stuttering by about 90%. I take it every four hours for ADD and rarely forget a dose because my stuttering returns after three and a half hours. This not scientific by any means, but it is my experience after five years on this medication.

@George: My sentiments exactly -- I've been to...

2012-03-27T23:11:42.335+02:00

@George: My sentiments exactly -- I've been to many speech therapists ever since I started stuttering (strangely, I'm one of those rare cases where stuttering suddenly popped up overnight in adulthood), and all of them were quite incompetent when it came to the *scientific* reasoning behind stuttering. All they kept telling me to do was to practice the techniques, but they never worked for me. When I questioned them about the exact biological roots and mechanics of stuttering, they were all puzzled. This has always pissed me off, because what else but a biological explanation can I fall on if speech techniques don't work for me?

Like you, I also strongly believe that speech-language pathologists should not be involved in stuttering research if they don't know jacksh*t about the underlying scientific mechanisms. They're more aligned with counselors than anything else.

Seems to be a kind of the Van Riper therapy. The t...

2012-03-21T16:11:24.295+01:00

Seems to be a kind of the Van Riper therapy. The text on the website mentioned, that the Van Riper therapy is often too complicated for patients and therapists. So it seems to be a easier version of Van Riper.