From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Most children start stuttering between the ages of 3 to 5. It might last weeks or months or become a lifelong condition. If it has been going on for at least six months, a therapist likely should be seen, Eldridge said.
With early treatment within a year of when stuttering begins, 95 percent of those children who stutter can go on to become fluent speakers, he said.
The August edition of the SpeechEasy newsletter is now available for viewing on the web. Click here to read it.
Researchers have identified 3 genes as a source of stuttering. Because stuttering tends to run in families, researchers have long suspected a genetic component. In previous work involving families from Pakistan, a team led by Dr. Dennis Drayna of NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) found a region on chromosome 12 that seemed to be involved.
Read the full article here.
When I tried the Speecheasy, I was amazed and felt like a normal person for once. I almost cried and my mom had tears in her eyes. I couldn’t believe one thing could help so much. This would mean so much to me to have a normal life for once in my life and be able to be back in school, maybe even play baseball.
Read the full story here.
Oliver Bloodstein, a major founding father of the modern field of speech-language pathology, and an internationally respected expert on stuttering, died on July 4, 2010 at the age of 89.
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The Handbook, his life legacy, has been called “the most significant single publication in the entire field of speech pathology”, “the most important book on stuttering in print” and the “Bible” of stuttering research.
Read the rest of the obituary at stammering.org.
From the Chicago Daily Herald:
When Ben Staub was about 6 years old, his mother told him his dad was going to take him to a Friends Convention for kids who stutter.
Ben started to cry and said, “He can’t, mommy.” He got close to his mother and whispered, “But then he’ll know.”
Ben thought he was hiding his stuttering from everyone but his mother.
“All that time, he thought it was his dirty little secret,” his mother, Cathy Staub, remembered. “I didn’t know how ashamed it made him feel.”
Ben didn’t know any other children who stuttered. When he went to the convention, he walked into a room full of kids talking and stuttering.
“Suddenly, he wasn’t alone,” Staub said. “The power of that moment was so huge.”
Read the full story here.
For more information about the 2010 Friends Convention for The National Association of Young People Who Stutter, visit www.friendswhostutter.org.
Here is an update from Endo Pharmaceuticals on their research into the effectiveness of Pagoclone, a drug which was being studied to help treat stuttering:
Endo Pharmaceuticals has completed the initial analyses of the data from an ongoing pagoclone study (IP456-041). Although the study did not meet its pre-specified criteria for success, there were some trends of interest that Endo will look at more closely by conducting additional analyses of the data. The last part of this study will continue until completion late this year. A second active pagoclone study (IP456-039) will be closed in an orderly manner over the next several months. Patients participating in that study will be encouraged to discuss other treatment options with their physicians.
We are no longer enrolling any new patients or investigators to participate in pagoclone clinical studies.
For further questions, please call Endo Medical Information at 1-800-462-ENDO (3636).
(via Endo Pharmaceuticals)
