Uncovering The Causes of Stuttering: an Interview with Frank Guenther
(03/11/2022, Proud Stutter)
There is no definitive answer to why a person stutters. However, thanks to Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences Professor Frank Guenther and his research lab at Boston University, the mystery of stuttering has become a little clearer. With advances in brain activity monitoring technology, neuroscientists like Frank are able to explore stuttering in exciting new ways. Frank joined the Proud Stutter podcast for a conversation about his research on the underlying causes of stuttering and how it may be related to speech production.
Expert Quote:
“There are probably subtypes of stuttering that we will eventually need to separate out if we truly want to understand the behavior because otherwise we will just keep seeing variability from study to study. Overall, we see, for example, most of the studies show some weakening of left hemisphere connectivity, but it’s different connections in different people’s brains. And from study to study. They don’t always find the same regions. And so I think the fact that stuttering is this circuit level problem… a subtle malfunction that crops up every now and then.” – Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences Professor Frank Guenther