stutter

Frontiers

                                Repeat performance helps to stop a
                                stutter
                                                                                  30 Jun 01

                                A DEVICE that fits unobtrusively in the ear like a hearing aid could
                                help people who stutter to speak more fluently-by playing their own
                                voices back to them after a tiny delay.

                                "Delayed auditory feedback" is already used to help people with a
                                tendency to stutter to overcome their verbal block. But the devices
                                are big and bulky, as they are designed mainly for use in a clinical
                                setting. The new electronic aid, which is powered by standard hearing
                                aid batteries, is small enough to sit inside the ear canal.

                                "People can't see the aid. A person who stutters hates to be [visually]
                                identified as a person who stutters," says Joseph Kalinowski, a
                                researcher at East Carolina University in Greenville. Kalinowski's
                                research has demonstrated that delayed auditory feedback makes
                                most people who stutter more fluent, preventing about 80 per cent of
                                stuttering.

                                A company called Janus Development, also of Greenville, has acquired
                                manufacturing rights to the device and has begun making it, says
                                Kalinowski, who stutters himself and says the aid has almost
                                eliminated his condition. "I haven't talked on the phone in 25 years,"
                                he said, speaking to New Scientist in a phone interview while wearing
                                the device.

                                Although it's not certain why delayed auditory feedback works, one
                                idea is that it provides extra feedback to a portion of the brain that is
                                supposed to monitor the sensations of speech production, which
                                somehow fails to work normally in a person with a stutter.

                                Janus is working with a hearing-aid company to build the devices,
                                which can be adjusted to delay speech by between 25 and 75
                                milliseconds. The downside is the price: the aid will cost about
                                $3500-as much as an expensive hearing aid.

                                Kurt Kleiner
                                From New Scientist magazine, vol 170 issue 2297, 30/06/2001, page
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