Here is an issue I wish there were more research on (do let me know if you are aware of any...). Do we really have only 2 kinds of stuttering: developmental and neurogenic? What bugs me is that we lump all developmental stuttering in one category, yet I see different types of "development". The most obvious one is how most children who show some kind of stuttering behavior, recover from it spontaneously. Those who don't continue to stutter into adulthood. In adulthood we think in terms of a continuum of "severity" but we still assume we are dealing with the same problem. If there were different original neurological causes leading to different severities, it would be very difficult to tell them apart because the developmental aspects would tend to blur any differences. Is this what's happening? And here is one more indication that we MIGHT not be dealing with "one" kind of developmental stuttering. Some people stutter less and less in old age, and for some it doesn't change at all! I have known stutterers who attempted therapy throughout their life with no success.
This last fact really nags at me because I, and others, who feel they have "recovered" from stuttering, often think that it was due to their "work" with techniques for improvement, therapy etc. This includes me. I've gone as far as to put my ideas and experience into workshops, postings and even an audio course (script uploaded in group files). The suggestions I make, and which I applied to my own situation, are widely accepted in traditional therapy and I am confident that they would be helpful to any stutterer, but I must admit that I am an "experiment of one" ... and maybe my stutter would have vanished of its own accord regardless of any techniques. I think that Pres. Biden might be in this category. I feel very strongly that this hypothesis should be given serious consideration. If you are a researcher in this area would you please get in touch with me?
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