The Early Months of Stuttering: A Developmental Study

Objective data on the development of stuttering during its first several months are sparse. Such a deficit is due to parents\u27 tendency to postpone professional consultation regarding early stuttering until later in the course of the disorder and to a lack of longitudinal studies beginning close to onset. This report presents information on a rare group of 16 preschool subjects who were evaluated within several weeks after stuttering onset and followed for 6 months using multiple measures. The findings show that often early stuttering takes on a moderate-to-severe form. Substantial changes occurred, however, during the 6 months of the study, with a strong tendency for reduction in stuttering-like disfluencies, number of head/face movements, clinician severity ratings of stuttering, and parent ratings of stuttering. Several subjects, including severe cases, exhibited complete recovery. The large changes that occur during the early stage of stuttering suggest that relatively small differences in the length of post-onset interval (stuttering history) can greatly influence all research data of early childhood stuttering. The high, as well as fast, improvement rate suggests that the precise timing of early intervention should be conscientiously evaluated in carefully controlled studies

The genetic basis of persistence and recovery in stuttering

The purpose of this study was to elaborate on genetic perspectives of stuttering with reference to recovery and chronicity in children. Past research has provided evidence of a genetic factor in the transmission of susceptibility to stuttering, but factors governing persistence and recovery have not been as yet identified.Immediate and extended families of 66 stuttering probands were investigated to determine frequencies of persistent and recovered stuttering. Pedigree analysis and segregation analysis were utilized to examine patterns of heritability.The following questions were investigated: (1) Is there a sex effect in recovery from stuttering? This hypothesis examined the notion that females have a greater chance of recovery than do males, leading to the changing sex ratio from approximately 2:1 males to females close to onset of the disorder, to 4 or 5:1 in adulthood. A significant chi square indicated that recovery among females is significantly more frequent than among males, as shown by the sharply different sex ratios of persistent vs. recovered stutterers. (2) Is persistence or recovery from stuttering heritable? If recovery appears to be heritable, (a) are recovered and persistent stuttering a unitary disorder where recovered stuttering is a genetically milder form of persistent stuttering; (b) is recovery transmitted independent of stuttering; or (c) are recovered and persistent stuttering independent disorders? Results indicated that persistence or recovery are indeed heritable, and further, that recovery is not a milder form, nor do the two types of stuttering appear to be unrelated, independent disorders. Data are most consistent with the hypothesis that persistence is in part due to an additional genetic factor.Segregation analyses supported these conclusions and provided statistical evidence for both a single major locus and polygenic component for persistent and recovered stuttering.This study was supported by grant #R01-DC00459 from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health, Principal Investigator: Ehud Yairi.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio

The Early Months of Stuttering: A Developmental Study

Objective data on the development of stuttering during its first several months are sparse. Such a deficit is due to parents\u27 tendency to postpone professional consultation regarding early stuttering until later in the course of the disorder and to a lack of longitudinal studies beginning close to onset. This report presents information on a rare group of 16 preschool subjects who were evaluated within several weeks after stuttering onset and followed for 6 months using multiple measures. The findings show that often early stuttering takes on a moderate-to-severe form. Substantial changes occurred, however, during the 6 months of the study, with a strong tendency for reduction in stuttering-like disfluencies, number of head/face movements, clinician severity ratings of stuttering, and parent ratings of stuttering. Several subjects, including severe cases, exhibited complete recovery. The large changes that occur during the early stage of stuttering suggest that relatively small differences in the length of post-onset interval (stuttering history) can greatly influence all research data of early childhood stuttering. The high, as well as fast, improvement rate suggests that the precise timing of early intervention should be conscientiously evaluated in carefully controlled studies