Stuttering: A Brief Study

            Clear speech is important for effective communication. We all know the difficulty in speaking with a person whose grasp of our native language, whatever that may be, is limited or whose accent is very thick. We have to halt the speaker, ask for a repetition, or for the speaker to slow down. It is a frustrating process for both parties. Everyone has a need to make himself or herself heard and understood. It's an innate desire within us, which is why stuttering can be a serious difficulty. It causes many people emotional distress and frustration. To struggle to bring the words spoken so easily in your head into the world through vocalization can be upsetting and discouraging. I myself never stuttered as a child, but my younger brother did. He would get caught up on small words, like short names or conjunctions. At the dinner table he would be excitedly speaking to our dad, and then his sentence would come to a lurching halt with, “Dad-dad-dad-dad-dad-dad…” Until my dad would good-naturedly reply, “Spit it out Bud.” My brother never faced the teasing and ridicule that some stutterers face, and he mostly grew out of his speech difficulty. Some children are hurt indefinitely by their inability to speak clearly, which is why stuttering isn't a problem to be overlooked. According to Ernie Canadeo, interviewed in the New York Times, “Stuttering is one of the last diseases it’s still O.K. to make fun of.” Because of this it is important to understand what stuttering really is, what causes it, and how it can be treated or worked through.

We’ve all heard someone stutter, whether on TV, or in the classroom or workplace. Maybe you have a sibling or a parent who struggles with stuttering or have suffered it yourself. Regardless, most people are aware of stuttering, but few understand what it really is. For years it was widely believed that stuttering was an emotional problem caused in childhood by bad parenting. It was held that mothers who forced their children to uphold a certain level of speech could cause their child to feel nervous and stress when attempting to speak, causing the child to stammer and stumble over his or her words. Of course, there are many children who grow up with parents who correct their speech and encourage proper grammer. I clearly remember my own parents sharply reprimanding me for what they called, “baby talk” as I was growing up. No, stuttering is not caused by mothers who want their children to speak well. To understand what causes stuttering we must first understand what it is. According to The Stuttering Foundation, stuttering is,

"A communication disorder in which the flow of speech is broken by repetitions (li-li-like this), prolongations (lllllike this), or abnormal stoppages (no sound) of sounds and syllables. There may also be unusual facial and body movements associated with the effort to speak."

Stuttering has been present throughout history. It's believed by many scholars that Moses stuttered because the Bible says, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:10 NIV). In fact many well-known people have stuttered. Supposedly the Greek orator Demosthenes stuttered, along with Aesop, of Aesop’s Fables, Aristotle, and Lewis Carrol. More recently, Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Willis, and James Earl Jones all struggled with stuttering. Statistics from The Stuttering Foundation show that about one percent of Americans stutter. On top of that nearly 20 percent of children have moderate to severe speech difficulties during development, and about 5 percent of children will go through a period of stuttering for six months or more. Most of these children grow out of their stuttering or receive attention early enough to conquer the problem. However, one percent still remains, leaving over three million adults in American to struggle with stuttering.

            According to the Stuttering Foundation, there are four main causes of stuttering. The largest factor is genetics. A person is far more likely to stutter if a family member does. Unfortunately, scientists have yet to identify the gene that causes stuttering. The second factor is childhood development. If a child suffers from other speech issues or language problems that child is more likely to stutter. The third factor is neurophysiology. In recent years scientists have discovered that those who stutter process language in the brain differently than normal adults. The last factor is family dynamics. Although it is a myth that mothers cause stuttering by maintaining strict speech policies, it is true that the problem can be increased by certain family dynamics.

            One of the most interesting aspects of stuttering, and probably the least understood, is what happens in the brain of a person who stutters. We know language, in a normal adult, is processed in the left-brain. Recent experiments have revealed those who stutter use their right brain more heavily when processing language.

"The interesting thing with the brain patterns is that they are present even when the stutterers aren’t talking. When the neural activation patterns of stutterers and non-stutterers during silent reading of single words were compared, it was shown that although both subjects had bilateral activation of the brain, the left hemisphere of the non-stutterers had more focus, while on the other hand the right hemisphere of the stutterers showed more focus (Walker)."

Something complex is occurring in the brain of stutterers. During a study of stuttering performed at Purdue University, Christine Weber-Fox and Anne Smith conducted experiments measuring semantic, grammatical, and phonological principles to see if the stutterers’ brains reacted differently than those of normal adults. The stutterers and non-stutterers alike were asked to respond to words by pushing a button. During the study, it was noted that for most tasks the stutterers reacted as quickly as the non-stutterers, however, with complex language tasks, such as identifying words that look alike but do not rhyme the stutterers responded significantly slower than the non-stutterers. Weber-Fox believes that these results combined with the fact that stutterers use their right brain more than non-stutterers shows that the right brain in people who stutter is being forced to compensate for something that is not occurring as it should in the left-brain. The results gained from this experiment are corroborated by other experiments. One group of researchers looked at the use of Brocca’s area and Wernicke’s area. Brocca’s area is responsible for the formation of words, while Wernicke’s area is responsible for the muscle movements and language understanding. The study suggests that those who stutter can access Wernicke’s area and speak fluently by speaking slowly and planning what they will say. However, using Brocca’s area, which is where the memory stores preprogrammed motor controls, is difficult because the stutterer will continually stumble over the same sounds and words. All this being said, it is still largely unknown what occurs in the brain of the stutterer.

With increased knowledge about the cause of stuttering, it is relevant to ask if any improvements have been made in the way stuttering is treated? It's important to note that there is no hard and fast cure for stuttering. There are, however, treatments that can improve the sufferer's speech abilities. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, “The nature of the treatment will differ, based upon a person’s age, communication goals, and other factors.” It's suggested that children who stutter should see a speech pathologist at an early age. For older people, teenagers or adults, stuttering is more difficult to defeat. Experts work with sufferers on learning to control their breathing and to speak slowly. A device was created recently that fits into the ear of a stutterer and plays his or her voice back at a different frequency. This is done because people rarely stutter when speaking in unison or singing. However, these devices are relatively expensive and may not work for long periods of time or for all people. Unfortunately, no one knows how to completely cure stuttering, and there are many people who continue to suffer from it.

            Stuttering is a problem that affects many people. Because it cannot be completely cured, many will suffer ridicule for their difficulties. It's important to remember that stuttering has nothing to do with stupidity. Stutterers are fluent. They do not need their sentences finished for them. They do not need help speaking. Their difficulties do not point to a lack of language comprehension. What they do need is a wider understanding of stuttering on the part of the rest of the population, so the stigma will be lifted from this difficulty. Hopefully, as more people come to understand what stuttering is, fewer stutterers will suffer the ridicule and self-esteem issues that are caused by ignorant, cruel people.

Works Cited

Doty, Laura. "Famous People Who Stutter." Web. 6 Dec. 2009. <http://www.d.umn.edu/~cspiller/stutteringpage/famous.htm>.

"F.A.Q." The Stuttering Foundation. Web. 6 Dec. 2009.

Patterson-Neubert, Amy. "Stuttering more than talk ? research shows brain's role in disorder." Purdue News. 22 July 2004. Web. 6 Dec. 2009.

Pollack, Andrew. "To Fight Stuttering, Doctors Look at the Brain." The New York Times. 12 Sept. 2006. Web. 6 Dec. 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/health/12stutt.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1>.

"Stuttering." NIDCD. May 2002. Web. 6 Dec. 2009. <http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/stutter.htm>.

Walker, Claire. "The Neurological Causes of Stuttering." Serendip. 3 Jan. 2008. Web. 6 Dec. 2009.