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Brain Imaging Shows Abnormal White Matter Areas In the Brains of Stutterers

Posted by Soulskill on from the bonus-smarts dept.

n01 writes: Stuttering — a speech disorder in which sounds, syllables or words are repeated or prolonged — affects more than 70 million people, or about 1% of the population, worldwide. Once treated as a psychological or emotional condition, stuttering can now be traced to brain neuroanatomy and physiology. Two new studies from UC Santa Barbara researchers provide insight into the treatment of the speech disorder as well as understanding its physiological basis. The first paper, published in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, finds that the MPI stuttering treatment program, a new treatment developed at UCSB, was twice as effective as the standard best practices protocol. The second study, which appears in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, uses diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI) in an MRI scanner to identify abnormal areas of white matter in the brains of adult stutterers. According to co-author Janis Ingham, a professor emerita of speech and hearing sciences at UCSB and co-author of both papers, the two studies taken together demonstrate two critical points: A neuroanatomic abnormality exists in the brains of people who stutter, yet they can learn to speak fluently in spite of it.

50 comments

  1. Duh by binarylarry · · Score: 2, Funny

    You gotta flog the dolphin once in a while, to g-g-g-get that baby batter out of the brain!

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    1. Re:Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The dolphin didn't do nothing.

    2. Re:Duh by rmdingler · · Score: 1
      A man is run over at Main and Sycamore. Good Samaritan bystander calls it in.

      911... what's your emergency?

      "Man's been run over on Main and Syc-a-mmm..Sssik-am...sssii...shit! "

      Sorry sir...where are you?

      "Main and Sick... er, sik-ammmmm. Goddamnit. I'm going to drag him down to Main and Oak. Pick him up there."

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    3. Re:Duh by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      A boy is sitting on the porch, when a man walking by asks him "l..l..little b..b..boy, c..c..can y..y..you t..t..tell me wh..wh..where th..the.. library issss?
      The little boy shakes his head, and the man leaves.
      The boy's mother comes out, and says "You know where the library is. Why didn't you help that man?"
      The boy looks at his mom, and says, "Y..y...ou th..th..think I..I..I w..w..want t..t..to g..g.g..get sl..sl..slapped?

  2. In essence by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 1

    These folks has some busted RAM, but all is good because it's ECC

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    1. Re:In essence by erice · · Score: 1

      These folks has some busted RAM, but all is good because it's ECC

      If it was all good, they would not stutter. No, it looks like some important wiring is missing. Their brains have implemented a work-around that mostly does the job but is not a complete solution. There are conditions it does not handle well. A retraining program seems to help but it not clear if the wiring fault is being fixed or if they are just gaining an improved ability to avoid the problem cases.

    2. Re:In essence by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Their brains have implemented a work-around that mostly does the job but is not a complete solution.

      So their brain is like a HDD with some bad sectors. They can be remapped, but that slightly increases the average seek time.

    3. Re:In essence by Grisstle · · Score: 1

      Yes. Most of the time I don't stutter at all, but when I get emotional or too tired I stammer. I'm intrigued by the anecdote of the man who could sing clearly but couldn't speak normally without stuttering.

    4. Re:In essence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...man who could sing clearly but couldn't speak normally without stuttering...

      would that be Mel Tillis? He's a country singer from the 60s/70s who would be on the shows trying to talk, and then would sing clearly.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Tillis

    5. Re:In essence by gstovall · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I know just what you mean. I've been a moderate/severe stutterer all my life, and I come from a long line of stutterers, passed down the maternal line.

      Yes, emotional state and fatigue make it worse, but I've found that facing fears about stuttering in social situations has been the largest help in "getting over" it.

      High school graduation was rough. I had practiced my salutatory speech until I was fluent, and I practiced in front of small groups of people, but when I faced a crowd of thousands of people in Reunion Arena in Dallas, all the practice went flying away. I stuttered and stammered through the entire speech. When I received a standing ovation, I didn't know if they were congratulating me or just massively relieved it was all over, but I did not know then that the worst speech event of my life had just passed.

      Was anxious over high intensity social situations, but I learned I live through them. In college, I dated a very high powered girl who was the chair of the Endowed Lecture Series at Texas A&M. One time I was her escort to a reception following a lecture hosting Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and a number of other foreign policy luminaries. I was so anxious about the speech situations, as she quietly pointed out the rich, famous, and powereful to me, that I didn't notice Henry Kissinger near me. I whirled around to help with some detail, and I ran over Kissinger, knocking him to the ground. Hey, I just messed up a social situation, and I didn't even have to speak to do it!!! He was very gracious, but for some reason my girlfriend did not have me escort her to any more receptions. Oops.

      I received more speech therapy in graduate school, and that's where they determined there really was some kind of neurological defect that was playing a part in the tendency toward stuttering. But there was nothing to do about that, and I had already mastered all the coping techniques that were available at the time, so it was time to move on with my life.

      At my wedding, to a childhood friend and, coincidentally, a speech pathologist, I was so enamored seeing her float down the aisle that I was absolutely flawless with my speech.

      After college, I started work for a telecommunications manufacturer -- pretty funny for a guy who was terrified of the telephone. But that job helped me deal with that fear. Now, the telephone holds no fear for me at all.

      Now, I teach classes, lead teams, speak in front of large groups of people, sing, act -- it's all good. Sometimes there have been bobbles with the speech, but nothing that's significant. And yes, there has never, in my entire life, been any stuttering during singing or acting.

      I admit it is a good feeling knowing that my four children would never suffer the speech related fears I did, though!

    6. Re:In essence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bus error is the cause.

    7. Re:In essence by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      ALL stutterers can sing without showing the trait.

    8. Re:In essence by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      One word: metoprolol. The downside is that you might start falling asleep in meetings.

    9. Re:In essence by Bowdie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And speaking different languages.

      I've had a stammer all my life, but it doesn't present when I speak another language, even on the sort of vowel sounds that would normally make me stick terribly.

      --
      yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
    10. Re: In essence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ...and the downside was?

    11. Re:In essence by Grisstle · · Score: 1

      You know, I never noticed that I don't stutter when I speak Spanish or German. I will try to be more mindful to see if the same is true. It could be that I don't speak those other languages often enough or for that matter when I'm tired or upset.

    12. Re:In essence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So 2015 is the year we finally don't need any car analogies anymore!

    13. Re:In essence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I suffered from full block stuttering (I don't know what the medical term is) where basically I would come up to a word and could not say it. Back up and try again, same thing. Words would come and go that I had this problem with. Sometimes it would take me minutes to say my name. I found an interesting analogy with the comedian Terry-Thomas, who late in life suffered from Parkinson's Disease (if I remember correctly). He said that there were mornings when he could not walk, say, into his kitchen. He would come right up to the doorway and stop. Back up, try again, and still come to an abrupt stop. But he could dance through the doorway. That would be an example of using a different part of the brain, I suppose, but to me it was a perfect description of the type of stuttering I had.

      Unlike gstovall, I discovered in middle school that I was less likely to stutter in front of an audience, and the bigger the audience the less the problem. By the time I got out of high school, I was 99% cured, and I really don't know how or why. Certainly a decade of speech therapy had no effect. But I've finally gotten to the point where I've worked in broadcasting, and sometimes getting paid $100 a minute for my voice, and after years of hearing speech therapists tell my parents that there were plenty of jobs I could do when I grew up that didn't require me to talk, I take that as achieving the impossible.

  3. Teach them to sing..? by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

    That seems to help some of the afflicted.

    --

    Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  4. Bah, Lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    My father told me growing up that my stutter was just something I was doing for attention, and I could stop as soon as I wanted (and I was consequently grounded and sent to my room when I "didn't want to stop"). Surely he'd never have done that if there was actually a REASON for my stuttering.

    1. Re:Bah, Lies by sexconker · · Score: 0

      My father told me growing up that my stutter was just something I was doing for attention, and I could stop as soon as I wanted (and I was consequently grounded and sent to my room when I "didn't want to stop"). Surely he'd never have done that if there was actually a REASON for my stuttering.

      And here you are today, with absolutely no stuttering in that post. More people should listen to their fathers.

    2. Re:Bah, Lies by Grisstle · · Score: 1

      Holy fuck that's awful. In my case getting emotional or upset only made my stutter worse. My parents never made a big deal of it, really they mostly ignored it and were patient while I worked out how to say what I was trying to communicate.

  5. King George VI of England by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has he been notified?

  6. How about ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    .01%

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  7. I am very unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am very unimpressed with their approach.
    1. Stutters brain scan was done many times before. A lot of unusual activity was observed. It is typically considered not as "unusual activity causes stuttering", but quite opposite: stuttering causes unusual brain activity. Even better - you can use polygraph (from my opinion the only valid use for it) - breathing pattern, heart rate - give very clear pattern when stuttering. Much better than MRI.

    2. They mention standard approach as "which teaches stutterers to prolong their speech" - this is plain WRONG. There are dozens of approaches: breathing control, relaxation, internal pace rate, etc. They have very different efficiency in different people. When the match is right - the result can be amazing. The problem - the match is seldom. And this guy tell that his stupid Ipad application would work for everyone - he looks like a snake oil merchant.

    3. There are many different kind of stuttering. There are can be spasms in beating, lips, tongue, stuttering without spasms etc. And this guy tells that his approach would work for everyone.

    4. He tells nothing about replaces. This is the most difficult issue with stuttering treatment. Typical situation - very good speech for half a year. And then stuttering comes back. Nobody knows why.

    1. Re:I am very unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I just have one more thing to add: stuttering is contagious. I never stuttered much at all as a child, but in college, I was paired with a roommate with a pretty severe stutter. I suddenly found myself stuttering a bit myself after living with him. After living away from him for a few months it was gone. Really bizarre. And no, I wasn't doing it on purpose.

    2. Re:I am very unimpressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You say "stuttering is contagious". This is sometimes correct in BOTH ways. First - as you mentioned. Second (and is quite common) a stutterer, when talksingto somebody who stutters, starts peaking fluently. I have seen this myself: stutter with with moderate stuttering speaking to speech therapist. Then speech therapist starts to simulate stuttering in himself. The patient amazingly starts speaking fluently.

  8. White? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MRI's can tell the color of something?

  9. Wah-wah-wah-wah- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Warrbbrrgarbl

  10. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's a physical problem similar to the stutterers. The difference, unfortunately, is that there is no way to work around apple fanboydom. It is a permanent condition.

  11. because by meglon · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    ....It never gets old.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  12. white matter + dark matter = grey matter (brains) by electrosoccertux · · Score: 0

    brains are usually grey. if these people have white matter in their brains maybe we just add dark matter and mix it together becomes grey. brains are grey anyhow

    science.

  13. you ain't seen nothing yet by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    because My Generation with it's Changes are Bad to the Bone. don't ruin Rock.

  14. Best Practices? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    >was twice as effective as the standard best practices protocol.

    So presumably the best practices protocol is no longer called 'best practices'.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  15. I think it's more complicated than that ... by Kittenman · · Score: 2

    I was a stutterer, and strongly blame psychological reasons (ever meet my mother?). I suspect some of us have psychological problems, some neurological (so this research says).

    I'd be interested if psychological problems caused neurological issues.

    --
    "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:I think it's more complicated than that ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are correct. Good stuttering clinics spend at least half of the time on correcting psychological problems. Teaching speech technique combined with correcting psychological problems give much more prolonged results. Typical result without correcting psychological problems: a person speaks very good while in clinic and results are completely gone in about a months after the therapy course. With psychological problems correction - it is better (may last for months and years). But anyway stuttering relapse is the most difficult problem to address. No matter how good you were in clinic, no matter how well you can deal with you psychological problems - stuttering may always come back.

    2. Re:I think it's more complicated than that ... by JimSadler · · Score: 1

      Thought and emotion absolutely can cause neurological changes. One great example is in savants who display radical abilities. With therapy some savants become more capable of living in the world. As they become more normal in daily function they start to lose their special abilities. Somehow they have managed to switch off energy to certain functions of the brain and directed all of their energy into very narrow abilities. Therapy can reverse that to some degree. Somehow savants have managed to redirect the neurology and chemical efforts of their nervous systems and block energies from going into other pathways in the brain. Some of that becomes patterned and sort of hard wired taking choice away from the savant.

  16. Re: stuttering is contagious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have the same problem: I "catch" a relative-in-law's stutter for about a day or so after I'm around that person for a few hours.

    p.s. I dreaded watching Breaking Bad scenes with Walt Jr / Flynn, because I was afraid of picking up his stutter.

  17. thats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fu fu fu fucking br br briilant

  18. Interesting by sjames · · Score: 1

    Some stutterers are helped greatly by a device that lets them hear their own speech with a short delay. AFAIK nobody knows why it works. Perhaps it is providing an external substitute for the missing internal connection.

    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This device just slows person down (you cannot speak faster, that the feedback loop delay. Try it yourself on a computer. Take any record playing program with a delay. The longer the delay - the slower you will speak). There are many other ways to slow speech. In terms of efficiency - such device is not very efficient. Again, there is no problem whatsoever to make a stutterer speak fluently at given time. The main problem is to prevent a stuttering relapse. Typical situation - very good speech for half a year - then stuttering comes back. Nothing changed. Same daily practice. Same routine. Nobody knows why.

    2. Re:Interesting by gstovall · · Score: 1

      Ah...my dear old friend DAF (Delayed Auditory Feedback).

      In high school, I received speech therapy at the Callier Center at UT Dallas (a very fine speech clinic, BTW). One of the first things they tried with me was DAF. It made my speech so slow I could not stand it -- I think we spent all of 5 minutes with it.

      Recently, I was working with my coworkers on a WebRTC access point for our media server, and we had inadvertantly left a secondary audio channel enabled that was acting as a DAF loop. We all were in a test conference, and rather than immediately fix it, we decided to spend a few minutes experiencing DAF. I spoke enormously slowly. Others started stuttering. A couple could not speak at all -- they'd start, but they just couldn't stand the feedback.

    3. Re:Interesting by mattstorer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      yeah I know what you mean. I got a taste of DAF myself in speech therapy in high school for my stutter, and I couldn't tolerate it, drove me absolutely nuts.

      in fact, I tried a number of different approaches in speech therapy when I was a kid, and none of it worked. eventually I said f-it to therapy and made a go of fixing it on my own. I'm pleased to say that whatever I did worked, such that today (and for the last 15-20 years, since college) I stutter so infrequently that when I do, people who don't know me often think I'm making a joke or otherwise screwing around. for all intents and purposes I'm now completely fluent, although being really tired or really agitated / anxious exacerbates it. those situations don't occur very often, thankfully.

      what I found that *did* work though, was a combination of two things :

      the first is something I like to call "speech buffering." simply put, this is the act of thinking about what I'm going to say just before I say it. I do this in real-time while I'm speaking, and the buffer only contains one or maybe two words, but that's enough. this is *not* composing an entire thought in my head before I say it - that level of composition isn't necessary. I think the buffering works by creating a better flow between syllables, such that I expect and mentally map the sounds before they get executed. I think I still do it, but I've been doing it for so long I'm not even particularly conscious of it at this point.

      the second thing I credit with really helping to resolve my stutter involved learning how to calm myself down when I get anxious about speaking - clear the mind, regulate the breathing, slow the heart rate. I found this to be really useful because public speaking has always made me nervous, and being anxious exacerbates my disfluency.

      however, between these two strategies - speech buffering and meditation / breathing exercises - I've been able to speak in front of large groups of strangers, speak before televised city council meetings, give presentations at work, etc., all with negligible disfluency.

      worked really well for me, maybe it can work for someone else.

    4. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DAF therapy worked for me. Yes, you start out s-l-o-w. But the goal is to decrease the delay, until you are using normal speech rates fluently.

      You can get the same effect by using a microphone; the delay induced by the speed of sound in a moderately-sized auditorium suffices.

      Thank you Louise. You know who you are. You saved my fluency, if not my life.

  19. Cure: Stay Drunk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I knew a person that stuttered, probably an average kind. When he drank he no longer stuttered. He wore plaid shirts. All the time. Glasses as I recall; it was 1980/81 Oklahoma. Did you know him?

  20. I used to stutter by strikethree · · Score: 1

    Up until I was about 3, I used to stutter. My mother and father became divorced, my father disappeared, and all stuttering went away almost overnight.

    I am not sure how this fits into their narrative. I was probably just a one-off... as usual.

    --
    "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    1. Re:I used to stutter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Stuttering before the age of 5-6 is about 5% of the of children. Most of kinds overcome this problem by the age of 7. And about 1% would continue to stutter in the adulthood. For adult stutterers (about 1% of the population) by the age of 40-50 most people have the stuttering severity largely reduced, but not completely overcome.