Stuttering Devices

BSA says exactly the same as the SFA; we are convinced that this is right. So do the great majority of therapists and researchers of whatever camp.

When it comes to comparing recovery figures between children who do and children who do not receive therapy, your critique appears based on the assumption that every therapist will treat every child that comes through their door, and that children who will recover naturally are just as likely to seek help as children who will not - in effect assuming that those children whom therapists eventually take on as clients are just as likely to have the same high natural recovery rate. That is of course nonsense.

Susan Block is talking about 'some children' – but even if 'some children' after Lidcombe revert to stammering some years after therapy, it is self-evident to me that it is better for them to be able to develop their language skills and their self-image as competent communicators during those early years without stammering.

You say that "… with the discovery of the mutant genes for a subtype of stutterer as I wrote in my reflections, it is impossible to effectively prevent stuttering except if you are able to replace the mutant gene or provide the body with the corresponding proteins."

Well, that's a death-knell for any therapy. What should we then do with these children – do a genetic test and then send them home? "No hope for you, mate, until gene therapy kicks in?"

I haven't yet seen an explanation of how precisely this gene causes the child to stammer. If it were true that it is "impossible to effectively prevent stuttering" the question is: where is the evidence that having this gene is