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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
Message-ID: <jqbD3426M.51A@netcom.com>
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References: <3gbknj$7tj@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3gc5al$hlv@mp.cs.niu.edu> <vlsi_libD33GzF.Js0@netcom.com> <3gciru$m1b@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 10:23:10 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <3gciru$m1b@mp.cs.niu.edu>, Neil Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu> wrote:
>In <vlsi_libD33GzF.Js0@netcom.com> vlsi_lib@netcom.com (Gerard Malecki) writes:
>>For example, it is widely believed that stuttering is caused not because
>>of a defective syntactic engine,

I would think not; there is nothing syntactic in nature about stuttering.

>>but rather in the motor area that
>>controls jaw movements. [....]

Oh, based on what?  Do stutterers display non-vocal irregularities in jaw
movement?  Since stuttering involves failure to release the breath, I would
think that the motor functions of the tongue, lips, and diaphragm, not the
jaw, are involved.  But I suspect that motor areas are the wrong place to look
for the failure.  Motor area problems would hardly explain why stutterers
have the most trouble with the first word of sentences, more trouble
with nouns, verbs and adjectives than with pronouns and prepositions, and
more trouble with the first syllable of multisyllabic words than with
monosyllabic words.  Note that these are the same words that normal speakers
will occasionally hesitate over or repeat.  Is such repetition and hesitation,
or the insertion of noise syllables such as "um" or "you know", caused in the
motor area that controls jaw movements?

>I haven't studied stuttering.  I am under the impression that it is
>a timing problem.  But I think it is too simple to blame it on
>the differentials in communication speeds.  I would guess it is
>more likely a failure of some internal adaptive mechanisms.

Stuttering is often associated with parents who take a disciplinary view
toward there child's speech development, attempting to correct perceived
nonfluencies; stutterers tend to be only or age-isolated children, and 4 to 5
times as many boys than girls in Western cultures stutter (males have more
difficulty with a wide variety of language disorders).  There are also
interesting and unexplained distributions of stuttering, such as that there
are more stutterers in northern countries than in southern.  Most stutterers
recover spontaneously in post-adolescence.  For the remainder, the correction
of stuttering usually requires psychological counseling to reduce anxiety and
increase self-esteem.  I suspect that, to some degree, as with many other
skills, smooth speech production requires its detachment from conscious
processes.


-- 
<J Q B>
