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