Lakhasly

Let us now turn to the research findings and clinical observations for which these views of stuttering must account.
Stuttering Occurs in All Cultures
The fact that stuttering is universal should not be unexpected because it depends less on culture than on basic biological variations of the
human brain. Many other disorders, such as dyslexia and specific language impairment, as well as such personality differences as
sensitive temperament, are associated with atypical activity of the central nervous system and are also universal.
Stuttering is a Low-Incidence Disorder
The fact that the prevalence of stuttering is relatively low may be a consequence of chronic stuttering resulting from a
combination of at least two biological predispositions, the co-occurrence of which does not happen frequently.
Stuttering Does Not Begin with the Onset of Speech
Why does stuttering usually begin only after fluency at the one- and two-word stage has been achieved? My view is that
stuttering emerges first from disruptions caused by a child's inefficient neural networks for speech and language
processing. Perhaps the task of coordinating all the phonetic, phonological, syntactic, and semantic components of longer
utterances is too much for inefficient neural circuitry under stress. Just like normal disfluency, the neural processing
circuitry of children who stutter may be adequate to handle one-word utterances. But once children begin to reorganize
their language functions from a lexical to a grammatical-rules basis and try out more complicated syntax, their inefficient
neural organization breaks down. An added demand on their planning system is that the shift from one- to two-word
utterances requires the use of a more complex prosody.
Remember that Kent (1984), Perkins, Kent, and Curlee 1991), and Wingate (1988) suggested that a major source of
breakdown is in timing linguistic and paralinguistic components. This demand for complex prosody at the multi-word stage
at the same time that phonological, syntactical,Let us now turn to the research findings and clinical observations for which these views of stuttering must account.
Stuttering Occurs in All Cultures
The fact that stuttering is universal should not be unexpected because it depends less on culture than on basic biological variations of the
human brain. Many other disorders, such as dyslexia and specific language impairment, as well as such personality differences as
sensitive temperament, are associated with atypical activity of the central nervous system and are also universal.
Stuttering is a Low-Incidence Disorder
The fact that the prevalence of stuttering is relatively low may be a consequence of chronic stuttering resulting from a
combination of at least two biological predispositions, the co-occurrence of which does not happen frequently.
Stuttering Does Not Begin with the Onset of Speech
Why does stuttering usually begin only after fluency at the one- and two-word stage has been achieved? My view is that
stuttering emerges first from disruptions caused by a child's inefficient neural networks for speech and language
processing. Perhaps the task of coordinating all the phonetic, phonological, syntactic, and semantic components of longer
utterances is too much for inefficient neural circuitry under stress. Just like normal disfluency, the neural processing
circuitry of children who stutter may be adequate to handle one-word utterances. But once children begin to reorganize
their language functions from a lexical to a grammatical-rules basis and try out more complicated syntax, their inefficient
neural organization breaks down. An added demand on their planning system is that the shift from one- to two-word
utterances requires the use of a more complex prosody.
Remember that Kent (1984), Perkins, Kent, and Curlee 1991), and Wingate (1988) suggested that a major source of
breakdown is in timing linguistic and paralinguistic components. This demand for complex prosody at the multi-word stage
at the same time that phonological, syntactical,Let us now turn to the research findings and clinical observations for which these views of stuttering must account.
Stuttering Occurs in All Cultures
The fact that stuttering is universal should not be unexpected because it depends less on culture than on basic biological variations of the
human brain. Many other disorders, such as dyslexia and specific language impairment, as well as such personality differences as
sensitive temperament, are associated with atypical activity of the central nervous system and are also universal.
Stuttering is a Low-Incidence Disorder
The fact that the prevalence of stuttering is relatively low may be a consequence of chronic stuttering resulting from a
combination of at least two biological predispositions, the co-occurrence of which does not happen frequently.
Stuttering Does Not Begin with the Onset of Speech
Why does stuttering usually begin only after fluency at the one- and two-word stage has been achieved? My view is that
stuttering emerges first from disruptions caused by a child's inefficient neural networks for speech and language
processing. Perhaps the task of coordinating all the phonetic, phonological, syntactic, and semantic components of longer
utterances is too much for inefficient neural circuitry under stress. Just like normal disfluency, the neural processing
circuitry of children who stutter may be adequate to handle one-word utterances. But once children begin to reorganize
their language functions from a lexical to a grammatical-rules basis and try out more complicated syntax, their inefficient
neural organization breaks down. An added demand on their planning system is that the shift from one- to two-word
utterances requires the use of a more complex prosody.
Remember that Kent (1984), Perkins, Kent, and Curlee 1991), and Wingate (1988) suggested that a major source of
breakdown is in timing linguistic and paralinguistic components. This demand for complex prosody at the multi-word stage
at the same time that phonological, syntactical,and lexical demands are added is likely to be a time when an inefficient speech and language system cannot keep up with the
demands for rapid and complex speech production. It is as if our imaginary bicycle factory described earlier in this chapter
had been producing old style bikes with pedal brakes and no gears (the one-word stage) but is now being asked to produce
bicycles with hand brakes and two sets of gears (multiword stage), even as customer demand is requiring faster work on the
production line (speech rate increases with longer utterances).