I have questions for Dr. Deryk Beal. Does the hypothesis of an adverse signal-to-noise ratio in the speech mechanism of people who stutter causes their speech to go haywire in the face of communicative stress merit further study? In this model, when that adverse signal-to-noise ratio is manifest, we have highly conditioned chained behaviours — maladaptive struggle behaviours that kick in as we attempt to regain control. Might an adverse signal-to-noise ratio have something to do with the differences in the white matter in the brain, the wiring, to which you referred in your conversation with Peter Reitzes on StutterTalk earlier this year? When adverse signal-to-noise ratio is present in electronics, the engineers may seek to introduce some form of squelch control. If this model is in fact what is going on in stuttering, it appears that distractor techniques act as a temporary squelch control”. Might quality speech therapy serve as a more lasting form of that?

— Ed Feuer, edfeuer@mts.net