The aetiology and treatment of developmental stammering in childhood

Sudden onset stuttering in an adult: Neurogenic and psychogenic perspectives

“…However, we need to consider the possibility that either pain, in itself, could potentially provide the ''trigger'', or that the trauma of the condition could have set up the stress condition that allows the stutter to appear, and then with the chronic nature of the condition, persist. Again though, if we were to accept that this case represents, some kind of ''pain induced'' stutter, it is unclear why, when the pain was controlled, the stutter did not resolve or improve, as reported in both the two cases mentioned earlier (Perino et al, 2000;Ward, 2006).…”

“…Perino, Famularo, and Taroni (2000) reported transient stuttering in an individual during a migraine attack. Ward (2006) also reported the case of apparent PS in an individual suffering from chronic and intense back pain. Nonetheless, a relationship between pain and acquired stuttering has yet to be validated, and awaits findings from both empirical studies and neuroimaging investigations.…”

“…This is not a feature reported in more recent accounts, though. For example, Mahr and Leith (1992) reported cases where some PS speakers were found to be extremely concerned about their speech (see Ward, 2006 for a review).…”

“…Developmental stuttering (DS) arises in childhood for reasons which are, as yet, not well understood, but may include genetic, motoric, linguistic and neurological factors, which interact with a range of environmental variables (Ward, 2008). DS too, has been found to demonstrate abnormal neural pathology, where brain scan evidence has shown functional asymmetries at both cortical and subcortical levels (De Nil, Kroll, & Hoole, 2001;Ingham, Fox, Costello Ingham, & Zamparripa, 2000;Neumann et al, 2003).…”

“…For others, it may not be able to correlate a PS episode with a single significant trauma. In these cases in particular, it seems the stutter can be highly resistant to a range of fluency therapy approaches (Ward, 2006).…”