Oxford Dysfluency Conference - three presentations
By Rachel Everard

Barry Guitar - Emotion, temperament and stuttering

Barry's research looked into the differences in temperament between people who stammer and those who don't. - People from each group were tested and compared to see whether they may reflect aspects of a sensitive or vulnerable temperament. The first measure showed that between the two groups, the people who stammered were more 'nervous' (meaning 'tense' or 'excessively excitable') than the people who didn't. The second measure showed that the group of people who stammered had a greater startle response - they startled more easily in the tests. I'm not sure what the implication for people like me are - I know I startle easily! Is this one of the reasons why I stammer?!

Anat Greenstein et al - gender based differences in stuttering

Anat's and her colleagues' study involved 10 men and 10 women, all of whom stammered. They were assessed in terms of the severity of their stammer and their communication attitudes. Perhaps not surprisingly, results showed that the women in the group stammered less severely than the men. More surprisingly, it also showed that both groups did not differ significantly in their communication attitudes. I had always thought that women were more sensitive about stammering than men and therefore more likely to use avoidance strategies. Being one of very few studies specifically on women who stammer, this makes very interesting reading.

Ashley Craig et al - epidemiology of stuttering across the lifespan (in Australia)

There are very few current studies examining the number of people who stammer at any one time, and those that do exist relate to children only. Ashley Craig's telephone survey addressed this problem by interviewing over 12,000 people living in New South Wales. Results showed that the prevalence of stammering over the whole population was 0.72%, with male to female ratios being 2.3:1. Obviously there are design limitations with a telephone survey but these figures can be used to argue for substantial resources being allocated to effective treatment.

Rachel Everard is a specialist speech and language therapist and Chair of BSA.

From the Autumn 2002 edition of Speaking Out