The Neurological Causes of Stuttering
There are 55 million people all over the world who suffer from stuttering and about 3 million live in the Unites States. This disability has been misunderstood for hundreds of years, but it affects more men then women and it often runs in the family. People who stutter when they speak are sometimes considered to be slower, mentally, then people who can speak fluently. Although research has made some progress in diagnosing the causes of stuttering, people still have preconceptions about stutterers. There are new studies being done to find genetic and neural links to explain and perhaps help cure this potentially isolating disorder.
One of the problems that stutterers face in society is the fast pace that people talk. When trying to talk in public, people will often try and finish a sentence for someone who is stuttering. This seemingly harmless act can often cause the stuttering to be worse, because the person who stutters will be more conscious of the fact that they are talking slowly and they will try to speed up, only to trip and stumble on more words. This disability is interesting because it is not always present in a stutterers daily activities. It has been found that talking to pets, singing, acting and whispering often make the disability disappear (4). On the other hand when the person has to talk to someone of authority or try to impress someone, the stuttering becomes a severe speech block (3).
This dramatic variation in speech ability lead to the investigation of the causes of stuttering. People who stutter, obviously don’t lack the ability to talk fluently but rather have an interference in that ability (3). To find out if there was a neurological link in the brain that caused people to stutter, a PET imaging study was performed comparing stutterers’ brains and non-stutterers’ brains. This study showed that stutterers may be using the right hemisphere of their brain when they are talking, which means that the left hemisphere (the one usually responsible for speech) is being interrupted (4). Stutterers still complain that when they do have to talk, they feel a lot of nervousness and stress, but doctors are now starting to think that these feelings don’t start the stuttering but rather aggravate the problem (4). The interesting thing with the brain patterns is that they are present even when the stutterers aren’t talking.
Broca's Aphasia occurs from damage to the inferior frontal gyrus and affects speech production, which is why it is sometimes referred to as "non-fluent aphasia." People with Broca's aphasia are completely aware of their inability to produce speech fluently, so they often become frustrated.
Communication is the very first thing one learns as soon as he or she is born, crying when something upsetting happens or laughing to show contentment. However, as one ages, they begin to realize that using words to express thoughts and feelings is a great deal harder than manipulating sounds and actions. Author Toni Bambara of “Raymond’s Run” and Lauren Tarshis of “Stuttering Doesn’t Hold Me Back” have similar views on the difficulty of speaking up. Bambara writes about a boy called Raymond who has Down Syndrome and communicates with others in a special way, as he cannot utilize his words. “Stuttering Doesn’t Hold Me Back” is an inspiring story regarding a young student facing the challenges of her disorder. Both writings consider the idea that we all have our own methods of conversing, and we need to accept and understand that it is normal.
Stuttering affects the fluency of speech. Stuttering is characterized by disruptions in speech sound productions, also known as a disfluency. Mostly, stuttering has a significant effect on some daily activities. Though some people have disfluency deficits only in certain situations. Some people limit their participations in different everyday activities because they are often embarrassed or sad about their situation and are concerned about how other's will react to stuttering. In stuttered speech repetitions of words or also of parts of words are included. Prolongations of speech sounds may also occur. It is a characteristic of some people who
This silent fear reflects that I grew up with a history of speech impediments. Spending countless hours as a child driving from one speech therapist to another, repeating a range of exercise from “fee-fi-fo-fum” to watching my tongue placement in a mirror, I was your
Blood, Blood, Maloney, Meyer, & Qualls (2007) examined the anxiety levels in adolescents who stutter to increase their understanding of the role of anxiety in stuttering across the lifespan. The participants were 36 students, chosen from public schools in Pennsylvania, who were in the 7th through 12th grade. However, only participants who have had treatment for their stuttering were included in the study. The control groups were chosen from public schools as well, and were chosen to match the stuttering participants in grade, gender, ethnicity and approximate age. To assess the stuttering severity of the participants, the Stuttering Severity Insturment-3 (SSI-3) was used. The outcomes classified the participants’ stuttering as either mild, moderate, severe, or very severe (profound). In measuring anxiety levels the researchers used the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS)....
According to ASHA, more than 2 million people in the United States have a severe communication disorder that impairs their ability to talk. This problem may be short or long term, and may be congenital (present at birth), acquired (occurring later in late), or degenerative (worsening throughout life). Some disorders could be from lack of oxygen at during the birth process, premature birth, genetic disorders, Cerebral Palsy while others may be caused by aTraumatic Brain Injury, or degenerative diseases.
Brain farts are very common and they happen to everyone. In fact, by the time that most people reach the age of 65 they could be having brain farts once a day (The Science Behind Brain Farts, 2015). A brain fart is a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly. Scientists call brain farts “the tip-of-the-tongue syndrome” or TOT. There are many examples of TOT that happen to people every day. We all have forgotten someone’s name, but feel like we know it. We come so close to remembering it that it’s as if it is on the tip of our tongues. We may use acoustic or semantic cues to help us. Semantic cues relate things to meaning, while acoustic cues are sounding out words or phrases to help with remembering or recall (Rathus, 2010, pg.
Stuttering is a neurological disorder of communication, from which the normal flow of speech is disrupted by repetitions (neu-neu-neuro), prolongations (biiiii-ol-ooogy), or abnormal stoppages (no sound) of sounds and syllables. Rapid eye blinking, tremors of the lips and/or jaw, or other struggle behaviors of the face or upper body may accompany speech disruptions ((3)). Why does stuttering worsen in situations that involve speaking before a group of people or talking on the phone, whereas fluency of speech improves in situations such as whispering, acting, talking to pets, speaking alone, or singing ((1))? In ancient times, physicians believed that the stutterer's tongue was either too long or too short, too wet or too dry. Therefore, practitioners from the mid-1800s tried surgical remedies such as drilling holes into the skull or cutting pieces of the tongue out to eliminate stuttering (1).
In “Why I Keep Speaking Up, Even When People Mock My Accent,” Safwat Saleem(2016), in an inspiring Ted Talk, emphasizes that maybe normal isn't really normal, Saleem talks about his life and growing up with a stutter and learning confidence. Although as a kid Saleem was bullied such as this example; “After some awkward silence, he goes, "Have you forgotten your name?" (Saleem 2016)And I'm still quiet. And then, slowly, all the other people in the room begin to turn toward me and ask, almost in unison,”(Saleem 2016) with this experience, he, later on, he found comfort in doing voice overs in his videos and disguising his voice to help him except his voice. As to find a norm in his voice
Children and young people develop a wide range of active strategies to help them cope with living with violence, which includ...
...hese children were unfairly target for this research because they were institutionalized I believe that Johnson studied was to biased because he was so determine to find a cure that will help him in the long run instead of reviewing the facts. In reality, stuttering can caused by different things such as environmental, biological factor, or genetic. In Johnson, case he already had hypothesis in mind and he was too determine to prove his hypothesis instead of reviewing the facts.
For example one question was, “does it prevent me from doing ordinary things?” It’s a yes and no answer because I still walk, and run it does not prevent me from doing things physical things, but when it comes to talking it’s a little bit more difficult and I struggle more. Stuttering makes things more challenging which is alright but you have to work more on how you talk. “Why can’t you speak correctly?” That is another question that anyone can ask and the truth is that it is a disorder in our speech sound of word, we repeat some of the words. “How does it feel to stutter?” To me as a stutter person it affects emotionally because sometimes I rather be quite and prevent talking and embarrassing myself. It affects us because of the way we communicate, it is not easy but we try to make it fluently as possible. (Question
Paramedics are frequently presented with neurological emergencies in the pre-hospital environment. Neurological emergencies include conditions such as, strokes, head or spinal injuries. To ensure the effective management of neurological emergencies an appropriate and timely neurological assessment is essential. Several factors are associated with the effectiveness and appropriateness of neurological assessments within the pre-hospital setting. Some examples include, variable clinical presentations, difficulty undertaking investigations, and the requirement for rapid management and transportation decisions (Lima & Maranhão-Filho, 2012; Middleton et al., 2012; Minardi & Crocco, 2009; Stocchetti et al., 2004; Yanagawa & Miyawaki, 2012). Through a review of current literature, the applicability and transferability of a neurological assessment within the pre-hospital clinical environment is critiqued. Blumenfeld (2010) describes the neurological assessment as an important analytical tool that evaluates the functionality of an individual’s nervous system. Blumenfeld (2010) dissected and evaluated the neurological assessment into six functional components, mental status, cranial nerves, motor exam, reflexes, co-ordination and gait, and a sensory examination.
Lampinen, J.M., & Sexton- Radek (Eds.). (2010). Protecting Children from Violence: Evidence- Based Interventions. New York, NY: Psychology Press.