Stuttering
Weird NPR story this morning about how stuttering has now been linked to specific genes. "Stuttering used to be considered an emotional issue [related to parenting]," the story reported, "But stuttering runs in families, which indicates genetics." It also said "This comes as a great relief to stutterers."
Uh...does it?
My dad stuttered terribly as a child and young man. I never heard him stutter in the classic sense, but his speech patterns did reflect the affliction. After my dad's death, I heard an interview with James Earl Jones, whose casual speaking voice reminded me oddly of my dad's, despite no similarity in their vocal tambre. JEJ became an actor when his public speaking practice proved helpful with his stuttering, but an unscripted interview still revealed hints of his stuttering past that gave his speech patterns similarities to my dad's. My own stammering offers an echo of the speech pattern as well.
Years before, I was in the car with my dad when an NPR show suggested that stutterers had an unusual condition in their throat muscles that caused them to lock up under certain kinds of stress. While this suggestion might have been received as a helpful explanation, my dad deeply resented the suggestion that stutterers were in any way different from anybody else. "I can make anybody a stutterer," he said. "Just tell them to stop and think about what they say before they say it. And when they stutter, tell them they're not thinking enough about what they say before they say it."
I heard in his statement both a painful understanding of how neurotic habits are passed from parents to children, and a sense of how vital it was to my dad that he think of himself as normal.
A stutterer's desire to be thought of as "normal" is an emotional issue, and it doesn't mean that there is no physiological or genetic predisposition to stuttering. But it does suggest, to start with, that a "genetic link" to stuttering may not be welcomed by all stutterers who would prefer to recognize the way parents' attempts to eliminate stuttering in their children may instead create or aggravate it.
More importantly, today's NPR story sidestepped the issue of how genetics might provide a predisposition for stuttering that nevertheless incorporates learned behaviors or emotional issues as well.
It also conveniently ignored the fact that many things that run in families - cultural interests, social class, and yes, speech patterns - have nothing to do with genetics.
There may well be a strong genetic component that allows stuttering to develop - I don't disagree with that element of the story. But the idea that stuttering might have one single cause conflicts with the reality that stuttering becomes a reflection of personal stress and other social and psychological conditions affecting the stutterer.
The story proclaimed the genetic connection as a positive revelation because it proved that stuttering was "not the fault of those who suffer from it". I heard this statement as strangely manipulative: my understanding is that stuttering is at least deeply aggravated, and perhaps even wholly caused, by the belief that it's somehow the "fault" of those who suffer from it. Could it be that stuttering and many other physiological and psychological conditions are rooted in our culture's habitual replacement of understanding with blame?
Uh...does it?
My dad stuttered terribly as a child and young man. I never heard him stutter in the classic sense, but his speech patterns did reflect the affliction. After my dad's death, I heard an interview with James Earl Jones, whose casual speaking voice reminded me oddly of my dad's, despite no similarity in their vocal tambre. JEJ became an actor when his public speaking practice proved helpful with his stuttering, but an unscripted interview still revealed hints of his stuttering past that gave his speech patterns similarities to my dad's. My own stammering offers an echo of the speech pattern as well.
Years before, I was in the car with my dad when an NPR show suggested that stutterers had an unusual condition in their throat muscles that caused them to lock up under certain kinds of stress. While this suggestion might have been received as a helpful explanation, my dad deeply resented the suggestion that stutterers were in any way different from anybody else. "I can make anybody a stutterer," he said. "Just tell them to stop and think about what they say before they say it. And when they stutter, tell them they're not thinking enough about what they say before they say it."
I heard in his statement both a painful understanding of how neurotic habits are passed from parents to children, and a sense of how vital it was to my dad that he think of himself as normal.
A stutterer's desire to be thought of as "normal" is an emotional issue, and it doesn't mean that there is no physiological or genetic predisposition to stuttering. But it does suggest, to start with, that a "genetic link" to stuttering may not be welcomed by all stutterers who would prefer to recognize the way parents' attempts to eliminate stuttering in their children may instead create or aggravate it.
More importantly, today's NPR story sidestepped the issue of how genetics might provide a predisposition for stuttering that nevertheless incorporates learned behaviors or emotional issues as well.
It also conveniently ignored the fact that many things that run in families - cultural interests, social class, and yes, speech patterns - have nothing to do with genetics.
There may well be a strong genetic component that allows stuttering to develop - I don't disagree with that element of the story. But the idea that stuttering might have one single cause conflicts with the reality that stuttering becomes a reflection of personal stress and other social and psychological conditions affecting the stutterer.
The story proclaimed the genetic connection as a positive revelation because it proved that stuttering was "not the fault of those who suffer from it". I heard this statement as strangely manipulative: my understanding is that stuttering is at least deeply aggravated, and perhaps even wholly caused, by the belief that it's somehow the "fault" of those who suffer from it. Could it be that stuttering and many other physiological and psychological conditions are rooted in our culture's habitual replacement of understanding with blame?