Episode #185: Looks like stuttering is a lot more complex than we think! And that makes researching the cause, treatment, and cure an astronomical challenge. On this episode, I chat with my friend, Dr. Greg Snyder, who is a professor and stuttering researcher at Ole Miss, about the complexity of stuttering and stuttering research. What if scientists looked at stuttering as an umbrella pathology instead of a singular one? Could this approach be the key to finally unraveling the mysteries of our speech?

There’s documented evidence that stuttering is a genetic pathology (at least for around 5% of folks with persistent developmental stuttering). Greg ponders that there could be many different genetic mutations that ultimately result in different stuttering behaviours; and the genetic heterogeneity of stuttering makes it difficult to research and treat. Science may be better off looking for many different needles in a haystack instead of just one.

Greg and I also chat about unfortunate biases in research, how darn difficult it is to conduct control groups in stuttering research, and why the heck we call coffee shop employees “baristas”.

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Photo credit (except for the image of Franky Banky):

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