Stuttering. Who is guilty and what to do

Our son went to school this year. It studies well, he would be an excellent pupil, if  he did not stammer. The husband considers, that, first of all, it is a problem of intercourse, as Alesha  talks to himself absolutely normally. Unfortunately, there are no doctors in our polyclinic,  whom we can consult concerning  such problem.

Therefore it would be interesting to read the opinion of the expert on the reasons and modern methods of treatment of stuttering at the pages of "Family council”. I think, that it will be interesting for all families, where kiddies suffer from stuttering.

The  Komarovs family, Maslovka village, the Tambov region

We  have asked the director of the Research and development center of biocybernetics  Andrey Bludov to comment the LETTER of our reader.   

The PROBLEM of stuttering (logoneurosis) always disturbed people. In fact at all times unfortunate patients felt themselves the social outcasts. Doctors searched for the ways of the most effective treatment for many centuries. 

 According to the British stammering association up to 10 % of inhabitants of the Europe face  one or another speech problems, which mostly occur  at children's age. The similar situation is observed  in Russia. At that men suffer from stuttering  in three-four times more often, than  women, that is connected with the features of interaction of the right and left cerebral hemispheres. 

 The efforts which were made for  overcoming stuttering,  made many people with speech problems really well-known. Demosthen was a brilliant orator, Napoleon - a legendary commander, Winston Churchill - the prime minister of the Great Britain, Marilyn  Monroe - an idol of generations, and Bruce Willis – “a hard nut”, etc. 

 There are a lot of myths concerning the stuttering problem. The main myth  is connected with substitution of cause-and-effect relationships. 

 Many experts suggest an idea, that stuttering is a problem of communication, as in most cases it increases at communication  and often is absent at conversation “alone with oneself”. Actually, stammering people  have just a raised background tone of the motor speech center. That is why even the natural emotions, peculiar to all normal people during communication, break the inhibitory influences, supervising this center, and spasms begin. That is it is necessary to work with a tone of the speech center, instead of  treatment of the "wrong" psychology of communication.   

So, why?

 Basically because of incoordination of cerebral hemispheres.  

Having examined several thousand patients, we established, that 65 % have the following discordance: a sighting  eye - left ("historical" lefthanders), a response hand – right. As a rule, stuttering arose at the age of 5-7 years old during the moment of  hand accentuation,  when a child learnt to draw and write. The true reason of occurrence of this kind of stuttering is the factor of the retrained lefthanderism. And retraining more often  is of the imitative character.  It is the first type of stuttering.  

Under the second type  the patient has got the right sighting  eye, he writes also with  the right hand, and stuttering arises during the moment of formation of the associative center. I.e. in 2-4 years, sometimes practically right after  the child  began speaking.  This  type of stuttering is  often called   congenital, and it is connected with the peculiarity of the brain mediators work. Also  the stuttering, which arose at later age after the transmitted narcosis, intoxications, etc., can be referred to the second type.  According to our data, the second type of stuttering arises in 25 % of cases. As well as the first one, it develops gradually. 

 And  the third type, from which 10 % of stutterers suffer, develops at once, in one day. It is connected with a mental trauma.  

How to beat the "enemy"?

 Figuratively it can be presented in the form of homunculus or Penfield’s man. 

 Its proportions correspond to the conception of our body in cerebral cortex. A hand occupies about a third, lips – one more third, language, throat, i.e.  speech organs, the rest of the body occupies  disproportionately  little. For this reason, logopedic techniques are divided into two great branches: those, which  necessarily use a hand - for example, a technique by Andronova -Arutyunyan, and those, which use the control of breath and the speech apparatus, for example the  technique by Strelnikova.  

 Also for "struggle" against Penfield’s man they use the numerous inhibitory techniques, reducing the supertension of the speech center: from tranquilizers, suggestion and hypnosis to acupuncture, physio-, psycho- and phytotherapy. From slowing down of speech rate  by means of  rhythmic speech and melodiousness up to long silence. All these techniques, which have been developed  by doctors and logopedists, are also suited  for treatment of stuttering. However there are also some other methods, which do not inhibit, but reconstruct the work of the speech centers. (Continuation of the topic - in our following publication).