What Causes Stuttering in People?
Researchers have a variety of speculations about why stuttering or stammering occurs in some people. However, the exact cause of this speech condition is still unknown today. What researchers are sure of is that there are factors that may influence a persons inability to speak fluently.
Language Development
Developmental stammering is the most usual form of the condition. That means it affects young children at a stage when they are learning how to speak and form language. Children who are still in the process of developing their speech and language tend to stutter when they speak. It occurs when children rack up their brain for the right words to convey their message. This is a sign that their speech and language abilities are not yet developed enough to help them express clearly what they intend to say. If you are very concerned with your childs constant stammering, dont be. Your child will outgrow it within about four years.
Genetics
Most scientists believe that many forms of stammering have something to do with genetics. It is because of the tendency of the condition to run in families, supporting the claim that stammering may be inherited from one generation to another. However, the exact genetic mechanisms that cause stammering or genes that trigger the condition have yet to be found.
Neurogenic Disorder or Signal Problems
People may stutter because of difficulties in transmitting signals from the brain to the muscles and nerves that control speech. That happens when the speech muscles and nerves fail to function properly, which make it harder for the brain to coordinate with the various parts of the speech mechanism in the body. This stammering type is referred to in speech pathology terms as a neurogenic disorder. It usually occurs in children as well as adults who have brain injury or those who have suffered from stroke. In rare cases, lesions or structural flaws in the part of the brain that takes charge of a persons motor speech trigger this neurogenic condition.
Psychogenic Disorder
Scientists explain that some forms of stammering originate from the brains activities such as reasoning and thought. This type of stammering is called psychogenic disorder. Compared to other forms of stammering discussed earlier, the psychogenic origin rarely affects peoples speech. It happens to people who have undergone extreme mental stress or trauma or those who have certain types of mental disorder.
However, experts believe that these emotional and mental problems lead to stuttering instead of causing the speech condition. For example, people who usually stammer may have to endure several emotional troubles like speaking on the telephone or in public. Others dread meeting new people. In some cases, people stammer when they are intensely excited, enraged, scared, or shocked. Aside from these extreme emotions, fatigue, intense pressure, and self-consciousness may also increase a persons tendency to stutter while speaking.
Interestingly, many people who usually stutter can speak fluently when they talk to themselves, speak with a few friends, or sing with a crowd or group. The reason for that is still unclear, though.
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Vital Notes about Different Aspects of Stuttering
Stuttering is considered as a kind of speech disorder that manifests through a persons hesitation to continue what they are saying, repetition of syllables or whole words and phrases and prolongation of sounds while they are speaking. This is usually experienced by children from ages two to five because this is the stage when they are only learning to form sounds, words and complete sentences.
There are some people who suffer from this due to genetic factors, but there are no proven studies to claim this point. Other people suffer from this speech disorder as a result of neurological events like traumatic brain injuries and stroke. The case is sometimes considered a psychological problem. It can get worse when the stutterer is faced with many stress factors or they are dealing with anxiety and nervousness. There are cases when people can sing without any hints that they have the condition and you will only notice such once they begin speaking in a conversational manner.
Symptoms
The known symptoms of this condition include extended pauses while delivering your message, creating long sounds in between words, repetition of words or certain parts of the words. If you have this case, you may also find it hard or feel hesitant in starting your phrases. There are also physical manifestations like too much blinking of the eyes, jaw jerking and involuntary movements of certain body parts without intending to do such.
Treatment
If the condition is only mild, you must learn how to handle it on your own. It will help if you are going to find out whats causing the problem. What makes you feel nervous when you are talking with other people? Why cant you speak to a large crowd or why cant you look directly to the eyes of the person you are talking to?
After you have accepted that there really is a problem and that you cant handle it on your own, you can go to a professional speech language pathologist to help you in this case. They can recommend you good medications to help you at the start. This must be backed up with therapy sessions and you should also initiate to practice facing your fears as you progress through the process.
If you are dealing with a child who has this problem, you have to guide them by giving them time to finish what they have to say. Allow them to talk in a slow manner and do not interrupt that much as they try to convey their message.
Both adults and children should also try doing regular breathing exercises. It will also help if you are going to practice singing your thoughts. While you are still in the process of finding a cure, you must avoid situations where you will feel very stressed out because this will only aggravate your condition.
Studies are still being conducted to find the right and the best cures for stuttering. Even if this is the case, this must not stop you from researching and applying good tips on what you can do to overcome the condition or help someone who is suffering from this.
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Types of Neuropharmacological Agents in Treating Stuttering
Because the cause of stuttering has never been clearly defined, the use of pharmacological agents has not been encouraged ever since. In addition, people who stutter experience different effects of drugs prescribed for treatment.
As such, there are different perspectives being taken in drug treatment for stuttering. From the etiological theories, experts view mainly the cause of stuttering as a psychological problem. It further explains that stuttering is a result of repressed needs or unconscious expression of internal conflicts.
Theories later see stuttering as a series of learned behaviours arising from psychological causes such as fear and anxiety. There are some theories that view stuttering as a genetic disorder. Scientific evidences later developed based on neurological motor and sensory deficits. These genetic abnormalities are combined with motor control deficits, learned behaviours, and psychological deficits as combined cause of stuttering.
Following these theories, still several pharmaceutical agents are invented to cure the disorder. Examples of agents based on these etiological theories are antipsychotics, neuroleptics, and sedatives and tranquilizers.
Antipsychotics include the use of carbon dioxide inhalation in 1948. This treatment would leave the stutterer unconscious for a moment and then followed by psychomotor excitement. Several psychological-related conditions such as phobias, hysteria, and disassociative states are treated with carbon dioxide. However, some experiments proved the ineffectiveness of carbon dioxide treatment in stuttering.
The neuroleptics are antipsychotic drugs that affect the psychomotor activity. Fortunately, they do not have hypnotic effects nor are sleep-inducing agents. Examples of neuroleptics used in treating stuttering are thioridaxine, trifluoperazine, and haloperidol. Experiments showed that thioridaxine and trifluoperazine reduce the severity of stuttering but not the frequency. Meanwhile, haloperidol is the most effective drug that improves stuttering symptoms as of to date but seldom prescribed because of its adverse effects such as dizziness.
Because of the popular theory of fear and anxiety as probable cause of stuttering, many experts have prescribed the use of sedatives and tranquilizers. An example of drug that has been tried but with little effect is the antihistamine, which has anti-anxiety and hypnotic effects.
Other minor tranquilizers include reserpine and meprobamate. Both are effective in lessening anxiety and physical tension.
Meanwhile, there are also drugs being prescribed based on a symptomatic and serendipitous basis. Some drugs are prescribed to cure the symptom of stuttering rather than the underlying etiology. For instance, neostignine was used because it was effective in treating spastic conditions, which some studies consider stuttering as a form of spasm. Luckily, some experiments showed positive results.
In addition, verapamil is a drug prescribed due to serendipitous basisa calcium channel blocker is used in treating cardiac arrhythmia. Like neostignine, experiments also showed favourable results. It is believed that verapamil might also reduce spasm in the muscles of articulation the way it does in the cardiac muscles. Other types of cardiac medications also showed positive effects on stuttering.
Yet, there are two vital factors in treating stuttering. One, there is no single drug approach that has been proven better quality. Second, even experiments showed favourable results, these drugs did not eradicate the stuttering.
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Types of Assistive Devices for Treating Stuttering
The use of devise to control or cure stutter is just another method from the myriad of choices. But the use of devise isnt a new invention that came with the dawn of technological advancement. Even before the time of Christ, famous Greek orator and stutterer Demosthenes practiced orating with pebbles in his mouth, sometimes with loud background noise, or while climbing steep hills.
Several types of assistive and anti-stuttering devices serve different purposes. One type of anti stuttering devices forces the stutterer to change mechanically his speech production pattern. French physician Jean Marie Itard made the first of this kind. He used a gold or silver fork and placed it under the tongue holding it in a higher position in the oral cavity.
Freed Stammercheck device is another example of this kind. This device force stutterers to speak with a limited range of lingual movement and slows pace of speech pattern. The Bates Appliance is more complicated that deals with many forms of stuttering. Another example is the Idehara Stutter-Cure, consisting of a retainer-like metal forms and a whistle to encourage continuous airflow when speaking.
Another type of devise provides visual and production to help stutterers identify and change their speech production as part of their therapies. These devices target different physiological processes. One example is the respiratory kinematics because many studies consider respiratory irregularities as a possible cause of stuttering. The Breathing Monitor, for instance, provides stutterers with real-time feedback on gaining adequate respiratory intake. It is part of a therapy, say the CAFET (Computer Aided Fluency Establishment Trainer). Both phonation and articulation are other physiological processes, which often appear to function abnormally in people who stutter.
There are also devices used to train gradual phonatory onset, sustained phonation, and reduce phonatory and or articulatory tension.
Because studies have proven that speaking to a superimposed rhythm aides to more fluent speaking pattern, a type of device is made to teach rhythmic and paced speaking patterns. An example is the Pacemaster electronic metronome, an attempt of ordinary portable metronome.
Recently, a surge of popularity and demand has been seen in devices that alter auditory feedback. It might be because of technological advances, groundbreaking designs, and great marketing techniques.
Several types of this kind include masked auditory feedback (MAF), delayed auditory feedback (DAF), frequency altered feedback (FAF), and the ones that provide combinations of the different altered auditory feedback patterns.
For instance, MAF refers to the use of sufficient sound to block auditory feedback of the speakers owns voice to his ears.
In addition, there are anxiety and fear-reducing devicesa class of assistive devices. It might be because studies show that anxiety towards stuttering, towards feared sounds, and towards speaking situations are vital rationales of the disorder.
Palmer Sweat Indexes (PSI) and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) are both used in stuttering therapies to measure physiologic correlates of anxiety. An example of this is the controversial technique called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing” (EMDR) therapy, introduced by Casa Futura Technologies few years ago.
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Treatments for Stuttering in Children
Worried about your child who seem not to outgrow his or her stuttering? Also called stammering, this speech condition have symptoms that include repetition of a word, syllable, or sound while speaking. It also involves trouble starting to speak a word, phrase or sentence. Other symptoms of stuttering include trembling of the jaw or lips, quick and repetitive blinking of the eyes, and tightness or tension of the face and upper part of the body. If your son or daughter suffers from these symptoms, it may be a sign that your kid has failed to outgrow that speech difficulty.
When should you bring your child to a specialist? For children between two to five years old, it is normal for them to stutter as they develop their speaking abilities. That will go away on its own. But if the stammering lasts beyond six months and occurs often with the symptoms mentioned above, then your child needs medical attention. If left untreated, stammering in children may lead to worse symptoms such as emotional problems, avoiding situations when the child has to speak, and poor performance in school.
It is advised that a child with speech problem be checked by a speech pathologist, a medical practitioner trained to diagnose and treat people suffering from speech, language, and voice disorders. During diagnosis, the speech pathologist will ask you about the history of the speech condition, particularly when it started and under what situations. After asking other relevant questions, the speech pathologist will perform a full assessment of the speech and language abilities of your child.
Various treatment methods are available for children with speech difficulty. These treatments only alleviate the condition to reduce stammeringno cure has been invented yet. Therapy can help a lot in keeping developmental stammering from getting in the way of a childs normal day-to-day life.
Stammering in children is usually treated through informing parents on the best ways to adjust or control their childrens speaking environment. That way, the episodes of stammering will be minimized.
The following are several suggestions for parents like you who are finding ways to treat your childs speech condition:
Discuss openly with your child the condition when he or she asks you about it.
Avoid encouraging or forcing your child to speak to other people.
Make sure that you maintain a relaxed environment in your home to give your child enough chance to speak. It would be a lot helpful if you let your child speak without any distraction coming from you or other people at home.
Be relaxed whenever you speak and do it slowly. That way, your child will learn to imitate the correct way to speak minus the stammering.
Listen to your child attentively whenever he or she talks to you. Be patientwait for your kid to complete the words. Avoid completing your childs thoughts for himself or herself.
Avoid punishing your child or reacting harshly because of his or her speech disfluency.
A cure for stuttering does not exist. However, as a parent, you can do some ways to help your child improve his or her fluency when speaking.
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The Way to Stuttering Therapy through Telemedicine
This advanced method of treating stuttering is still young, but studies have continually emerged through time. This remote treatment of stuttering uses the low cost video conferencing.
Video conferencing is the amalgam of audio, video, and communication network technologies for real-time interaction. Like the schools where students participate in distance education, the telemedicine uses electronic signals to transfer medical data from one site to another. This method is growing and being used by many health care providers.
Such method requires the use advanced technologies such as high-resolution photographs, radiological images, sounds, patient records, and video-conferencing.
This telemedicine offers many advantages. One example is the appeal of being able to visit and interact with a client without travelling outside ones clinic. This lessens transactional costs. Another advantage, which is important, is the ability to reach people from remotest areas where there are no available health providers.
However, all video-conferencing systems are an expensive room-based scheme. This is because it requires several significant components for both parties such as microphone, camera, and digitizer. The latter is very important for it converts audio and video into necessary digital form or codec to be able to transfer data efficiently.
Most computers are equipped with multimedia components such as audio capture and playback capabilities. The purpose of such components is to convert the audio signal into a digital code. Because this causes a large amount of information to be processed, there should be a compressor. This will reduce the amount of information so that the signal will not erode over a shared network of computers. This compressor uses a codec. It is typically integrated into the computer software. The smaller the data to be transmitted and the larger the capacity of bandwidth to contain data, the fastest the information is transferred.
With telemedicine, it is also important for computers to have a video camera that captures and displays video images. These cameras often cost between $100 and $900. Again, these video images are large data being transferred in a shared network. That is why it is very important to compress this data through codec. Lastly, the computer needs an Internet service provider. It is best to use Ethernet network at this process for modem connection is slower.
As such, studies show that this method can also provide therapeutic interaction with adults who stutter. Some considerations should be noted too such as challenges related to stability and speed of network connections. However, this can be minimized in some instances like controlling the time and the network traffic during video-conferencing activities.
This process does not aim to be a substitute to direct face-to-face treatment as of to date. However, because of technology, the use of video-conferencing may supplement the lack of treatment in several cases. This process may provide opportunities for therapeutic treatment for people with proximity problems. It will also enable people who stutter to interact with other people from different locations or countries.
This therapeutic treatment using video conferencing is no doubt a potential tool for remote stuttering intervention.
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The Step-By-Step Process of Mind-Body-Spirit Technique to Heal Struttering
Many clinicians now treat people who stutter using the mind-body-spirit medical philosophy, a model that was being practiced at least three thousand years ago.
Not only the principles and practices of this model are used to treat people who stutter. Such technique also showed effective results with terminally ill cancer patients and catastrophically ill children. Doctors employ visualization, guided imagery, and psychotherapy.
The mind-body-spirit medical philosophy is also known as alternative medicine or holistic medicine because clinicians look into the totality of the person including his mind and body to understand the dynamics that may induce or cause the illness and not just the symptoms.
The underpinning principle for such technique is that human organisms naturally yearn for balance and wellness in mind, body, and spirit. Such balance and wellness enables the body to function normally without much effort.
Therefore, recently, speech pathologist Carl H. Scott proposed a PWS in treating people who stutter. His model is based mainly from the mind-body-spirit medical philosophy. The technique does not only treat stuttering symptoms but also work the person toward balanced mind, body, and spirit.
Patients should take note of the adverse attitudes that would lead to unsuccessful treatment. The program is designed to encourage patients to develop their own inner guidance and therefore trust the technique. The technique makes patients self-reliant with a continuing source of information and inspiration to realize their goals.
The fundamental principle of this process is the commitment and intimate communication of patients with their higher selves. One clinician defines it as invisible life force.
A variety of therapeutic techniques is provided through the healing process. Examples of these are regression, gestalt therapy, psychosynthesis, applied kinesiology, EMDR, focusing, visualization, guided imagery, hypnosis, and neurolinguistic programming (NLP).
The first stage is to guide the patients to identify attitudes, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviour that might lead to unsuccessful healing. On this stage, clinicians are often listeners and absorbers of their patients seethes before the latter will be willing to throw their old belief system and accept a new perspective.
The second stage of the therapeutic sessions is to begin a healing process. Sometimes, this stage involves an inner child work. Other sessions might include dialoguing or forgiveness. The sessions are designed to dispel negative feelings and thoughts that has been stored over the years. This is because negative energies pose threat to therapeutic progress.
The next stage is designed to create a healthy belief system through indoctrination of new and positive thoughts and feelings. The sessions aim to develop a self-acceptance and love in the patients. The fundamental emphasis on this technique is to embed in patients belief system that everyone has freedom to think, feel, and behave.
This stage is focused on embedding new beliefs, thoughts, feelings, attitude, and behaviour on an internal level. Such goal is often attained through the use of guided imagery, visualization, and actively living the life outside the therapy environment.
This systematic process of mind-body-spirit model makes a person achieve fluency and eliminating his stuttering.
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Stuttering Symptoms: Understanding the Signs of Speech Problems
Stuttering is a normal speech behavior that occurs in ordinary conversations, public speaking engagements, or group discussions. Almost everyone has had experienced it, and it is not a cause for alarm if it does not interfere much in the clarity of a message or speech. However, some people tend to stutter more often than others do. Stammering becomes a speech problem if it gets in the way of communication or expressing oneself clearly.
There are many misconceptions about people who stutter a lot. One is that they are not as smart or well adjusted as non-stutterers are. This is mainly because of their difficulty in expressing themselves. However, people who stutter are not as unintelligent as they may appear. Stammering and intelligence have nothing to do with each other.
To know more and understand what stammering is and how it is manifested in children and adults, you have to learn the symptoms of this speech condition. Learning the symptoms enables you to take immediate actions once you have confirmed that you have speech disfluency.
Problems with speech production are the first symptoms of stammering. The most obvious sign of stammering is the repetition of syllables, sounds, or words. This occurs usually at the start of a word. Hesitation is another symptom. A person who stutters prolong or hold certain sounds at the start of a word for a few seconds. Stutterers also add a particular word or sound to his or her sentence in place of the word thats stuck in their tongue.
The other symptoms of speech disfluency manifest themselves when a person attempts to control his or her stammering. Several movements of the body can be noticed while a stutterer is speaking. These include jerky head movements, rapid blinking of the eyes, poor eye contact, and shaking of the lips and jaw.
A few symptoms are more difficult to see than the physical symptoms of stammering. These symptoms involve the emotions, which can be recognized by the stutterer himself. The worst among all symptoms of stammering include fear of the condition itself, inability to express oneself clearly, and avoidance of situations in which a person has to speak. Intense fear of being ridiculed and embarrassed is fairly common among people who frequently stutter.
Stutterers also tend to become angered and frustrated because of their condition and the reactions of other people about it. As a result, the self-esteem and self-image of a person who stutters go into a nosedive. All these emotional symptoms lead to another cycle of stammering symptoms, thus worsening a persons speech difficulties.
All symptoms of stuttering vary throughout a persons lifespan. They may increase or decrease, depending on the physical and emotional state of the stutterer. The symptoms may lessen when the person whispers, sings, talkx to pets, speaks along with others, or copies another persons manner of speaking.
On the other hand, symptoms get worse because of certain situations such as increased anxiety and nervousness when a person has to speak in public or to talk on the phone. Also, there are particular medications that trigger or aggravate the symptoms of stammering.
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Stuttering in Children: A Brief Guide for Parents
At the age of three to four, children begin stuttering as they develop their speech and language skills. That is just normal during the speech development stage, which causes toddlers to constantly repeat, hesitate, and mispronounce words, sounds, and syllables. This temporary stage is called normal disfluency or pseudo-stuttering that occurs as children learn how to speak properly. Parents have no reason to worry because kids will eventually outgrow this stage after several months.
Causes
Until now, the exact cause of speech disfluency in children is still the subject of numerous studies. However, there are factors that may possibly trigger speech disorders in children such as genetics and the malfunction of the mechanisms responsible for speech production in the brain, nerves, and muscles.
Symptoms
Stammering in children becomes a cause for alarm when they fail to show signs of improvement after six months since the onset of stammering. The following are the symptoms every parent should watch out:
Frequent repetition of a certain syllable (e.g. Mom, I want some cho-cho-cho chocolates.)
Tendency to pronounce particular sounds in a lengthy way (e.g. Ccccccan I wwwwatch TV?)
Substitution of vowels when repeating certain syllables. (e.g. I will wuh-wuh-wuhsh my feet.)
Change of tone and pitch when the child gets stuck with a word
Avoidance of speaking for fear of getting embarrassed
How to Help Children Overcome their Condition
As a parent, you have to make life a bit easier for your child and lessen the struggles he or she has to endure while going through the speech disfluency stage. The following are useful tips to help your child cope with the speech problem:
Refrain from asking your child too many questions. Toddlers will find it easier to speak more clearly when they are allowed to express themselves instead of answering questions often.
Do not react negatively or scold your child whenever he or she stutters. Making your child feel that you dislike stammering will only make him or her more self conscious. Just listen and show a neutral reaction or simply smile. Also, avoid the urge to complete or correct the sentence for your child. Let him or her express the message without any interruption.
After your child has completed the sentence, say it again in a slow manner to let him or her know that you understood the message.
Speak to your child in a moderate pace. This will train your child to speak calmly instead of hurrying to say things. In addition, pay attention to what your child has to say. If you look like youre in a hurry, your child will tend to speak faster to keep up with you.
Encouragebut dont forceyour child to talk. That way, the child learns to be confident when speaking. Whenever your child says a complete and correct sentence, praise him or her.
Your child needs your care, understanding, and support to be able to cope with stuttering. Give your child the assurance that you wont punish him or her for every mistake. That way, it will be easier for the child to outgrow the speech problem.
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