Stuttering Child Paper

Stuttering is characterized as involuntary repetitions, prolongations or cessation of sounds produced at a steady rate, and is also considered as a component of motor speech disorders. According to Lundgren, Helm-Estabrooks & Klein, speech dysfluences involves the repetition and prolongation of initial syllable of small grammatical words and a positive adaptation effect. Some research points to this disfluency of speech as a developmental problem in childhood, and as acquired causes in adults resulting from factors such as the medical trauma of strokes and/or medications. For example, Kaplan & Stagg described a patient who experienced personality change and bouts of stuttering following a seizure. Stuttering is a complex disorder that can cause memory loss with long-term brain damage from different type of injury. Studies show that due to the brain damage there may be severe memory loss. If stutterers devote an unbalanced amount of attention to speech, one way to assess this relationship is to discover the capability of stutters to simultaneously achieve no speech task during speech. Stuttering is only a speech delaying disorder, which causes the sufferers to hesitate when an individual should articulate. Stuttering has no association whatever to intelligence and intellect.

Stuttering occurs across cultures and has found to appear in persons who are bilingual and those who are monolingual. (Lim, Lincoln, Chan & Huak, 2008, 1525) Assert that through a complexity lens, stuttering comprises a number of systems within the person and the environment. For example, the person is represented by brain, mind, and body systems [e.g. Genetics plays a major role in leading to stuttering processing information through language]. They further assert that the disorder of stuttering is embedded in the complexity of spoken language and the communicative environment. For example, almost all areas of the brain are involved in processing language. Consequently, the brain and its response to the environment is a complex interaction in the verbal communication process including: (a) hearing and decoding what is said, (b) selecting words from the lexicon, and(c) drawing up the syllable gestures (Parkman, 2010, 78 ). Though a few may disagree that the neural patterns of stutterers differ from those of no stutterers, the neurons accountable for hearing and speech are in no way related to the neurons responsible for intelligence. Language symptoms involve unbalanced and broken up speech patterns. Characteristics of typical speech patterns include: repetitions of sounds, syllables, or short words.

Several theories have been posited to suggest that stuttering occurs at the lexical retrieval, phonological encoding, or phonetic encoding level. One view is held that language proficiency influences stuttering. (Lim 2008) Anderson and Wagovich 200 examined linguistic processing skills and the measurement of processing skills to detect subtle language processing issues and the relationship to stuttering. Reaction time is viewed as a method of examining the efficiency with which a person processes and responds to a language-based stimulus, such as a picture or word. The study focused on the extent to which phonological working memory and attention play a role in linguistic processing speed for children who stutter, and their more fluent peers. They hypothesized that in children who stutter; phonological working memory as measured by, "none word repetition" is associated with processing speed as measured by speech reaction time. Thus, as they explain, because lexical processing requires selective attention, intentional abilities are related to processing speed (Anderson & Wagovich 2010).