Part 1: What’s new in stuttering research

Treating young children who stutter: Indirect or direct?

A recent study¹ used a randomized control trial (highest level of evidence), to determine the effectiveness of Lidcombe vs. RESTART-DCM for treating preschool children who stutter. The researchers found that at 18 months, clinical outcomes for direct and indirect treatment were comparable. The authors conclude that both treatments are equally effective in treating developmental stuttering in ways that surpass expectations of natural recovery.

Mice that stutter: Genetics and stuttering

Key points:

• Mice with a GNPTAB mutation (a gene thought to be involved in stuttering) displayed less vocalizations and more frequent longer pauses than mice without the mutation².
• The genes identified in stuttering all point to a single process, intracellular trafficking, but only account for at most 20% of persistent stuttering cases³.
• Bottom line: Stuttering is genetic, but this isn’t the whole picture.

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“I know the ins and outs of history. I can tell you verbatim the biography of Ulysses S. Grant. I know every battle of every war. How it began, how it played out, and how it ended.

But because I can’t navigate social situations, I don’t have a job and I have no friends, even though I deeply want to connect with others. Because of my diagnosis, I cannot find my place in the world.”

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Answers to those hard questions that you are too scared to ask.

“Can I ask you something?” my friend asked timidly.

“Sure,” I said.

What is happening when you are stuttering? Do you know what you want to say? What should I do when this happens?” my friend anxiously asked.

With her voice cracking and her eyes diverting from mine, I could tell that these were hard questions for my friend to ask. I smiled, and thanked her for asking. These were really good questions.

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Surprised, I texted another stuttering friend who I knew had seen the movie. "There's a character who stutters?" He responded that yes there was, but it was so minor that he didn't even notice until someone else pointed it out.

In the intervening eons between opening night and Sunday, when I finally watched the film, I continued to receive messages. Some people were outraged that stuttering was associated with this ne'er-do-well. Some thought it was cool that stuttering was in Star Wars, at all. And some didn't even notice.

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