WEBVTT - How Stuttering Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.640 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:18.760 There's Charles w Chuck Bryan. There's no our guest producer today, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.720 which means it's still Stuff you should Know. That's right, 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:27.760 the Jerry Free edition. Yeah it feels weird. Yeah, She's like, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.240 I can't do this today. I'm going to the mall. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.600 She's always leaving us for them all. I know. That's weird. 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:36.560 Ever since we did that mall episode and she learned 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.320 it was a thing, right, you know, She's like, this 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.600 sounds like my kind of place. How you doing, I'm 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.720 doing pretty good. I'm been wanting to do this one 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:49.960 for a long time, and I think I started to 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.839 research it and I was like, oh man, I saw 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.280 maybe we went on tour or something like that. I 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:56.960 got pulled away from it and never went back to it. 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.840 So I'm glad we're doing it finally. So stuttering if 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:04.800 or in the in North America or Australia and stammering 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.040 if you're in the UK. Perhaps is that how it works? 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.600 I don't know. I know that stammering is what they 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.319 call it in the UK. Do they call it stuttering 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.640 in Australia as well. Yeah, this thing I pulled up 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.679 just said in general it's North American Australia say stutter, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.560 UK they say stammer. But it's the same thing, right, 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.800 it's basically Uh. I think the way that they get 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.440 around that is calling it disfluency. No one calls it that, 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:37.440 the scientists do. I never heard that word, sure, disfluency. 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.759 So I think that's actually the clinical name for what 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.080 we call stuttering or stammering, depending on where you are. Yeah. 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.480 And wasn't that Colin Firth movie called The Disfluent Prince 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.920 Who would Be King? Yep? I think that was the 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:57.960 working title what they call it, The King's Speech? Yeah, 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:03.200 pretty good movie. That was cute. Cute it was. Any 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.880 time you get Jeffrey Right in there in an inspirational role, 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.920 it's gonna be a cute movie. No, not Jeffrey Right, 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:13.080 Jeffrey Rush, I don't Jeffrey Wright always plays like the 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.600 super smart, like kind of um, like a deep state guy. 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.760 Jeffrey Right. He was bask yot right, I'm not thinking 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.480 the right guy. Did he play Baskiyat? I think so? 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.560 I don't think so in the movie Basku Yot, Yeah, 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:30.639 is that Jeffrey right? I don't think so. It is 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.920 Jeffrey right. Jeffrey Wright has been in tons of stuff. 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.600 Just look them up. You'll be like, Oh, that's Jeffrey right. 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.639 This is going terribly already. This is basically like the 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:49.799 podcast equivalent of stuttering, because chuck stuttering, also known as stammering, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:59.240 better known as disfluency, is an interrupted flow of speech. Okay, 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.560 but what when it starts to qualify for what we 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:07.040 would call like stuttering or stammering, it is. It's really noticeable. 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:12.240 It's um. It has a an interrupting effect typically on 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.040 the conversation or the communication that's meant to be going on, 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.880 the speaking that's going on. UM, that's on the far 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.080 end of the spectrum, on the on the other end 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:26.720 of the spectrum. Apparently just about everybody engages in disfluent speech. 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.360 I'm particularly guilty because I say um a lot, and 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.920 that's a form of disfluency. And disfluency chuck comes from 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.080 the idea that um that when you speak fluently, you're 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:43.360 speaking in a flowing manner that that is easy to 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.839 follow typically and is owner interrupted. But when you start 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:51.560 adding things like um or pauses or uh that kind 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:56.040 of thing like that, Uh, that's that's disfluency. And again, 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.920 disfluency is a normal part of communication if it occurs 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.400 about less than ten percent of the time. After that 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.920 you start to get into the stuttering slash stammering spectrum 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.920 or side of the disfluent spectrum. Yeah, and one thing 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.680 I learned, you know, you and I uh both Q 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:20.600 a quality assure each episode, which means, um, it's a 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.680 little behind the curtain peak. But Jerry will send them 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.120 back to us and you listen to it once and 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.200 then give her any like edit notes or whatever, um 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.840 and thoughts, and then I will listen to it and um, 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.240 generally I have no edit notes, um um um. And 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.520 I found that I know we're both gonna be so 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.280 self conscious about that. Well that's where I was getting too. Though. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.520 I found early on when listening to these episodes of 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:52.080 ourselves that it's it doesn't pay to focus on disfluency 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.920 in our own language because it can drive you nuts, 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.840 it really can. And so we have a conversational podcast, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.520 so we're not trying to you know, we're not Churchill 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:09.080 or Henry or was it Henry the six No, yeah 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:15.159 it was, Um, I don't remember. Just call him Firth, 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.920 how about that? Yeah, we're not calling Firth addressing the 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:23.120 country on the airwaves where it was very important that 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.520 he come across, as you know, a certain had a 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.800 certain fluency. But um, when it comes to stuff like this, 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.520 I think people are used to the fact, like occasionally 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:34.360 we'll get emails that go you go true do you say, 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.440 like and I'm a lot and we're just like, our 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.440 response is better luck finding a different podcast. This is 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.120 not for you. So anyway, I learned to not drive 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.320 myself crazy with that stuff. No, but it's funny you 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:49.920 bring that up because I was just yesterday listening to 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:55.520 um the Stockholm Syndrome episode for Stuff you Should Know Selects, 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.159 and I must have said, like a five time is 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.240 over the span of ten words even to that. But 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.520 even I noticed it. I normally have I'm pretty good 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.679 about tuning it out, but even I noticed at that time. 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.640 And it really kind of raises this issue that that 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.960 the whole thing about starting or stammering is not that 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:26.000 it's a it's a disorder or disease or a the 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.719 sign of an unintelligent person, or that the person can't 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.760 think of what they mean to say. It's absolutely none 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:37.560 of those things. It is strictly an interruption in what 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.760 we would consider normal communication, and so attention is drawn 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.040 to it, and it turns out that that just makes 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:46.800 the problem worse and worse, so it it turns into 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.920 this vicious cycle um to where But that's all that. 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.359 That's all it is. That's it. That's really it. And 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:58.120 I mean, like there's there's different theories about what's behind 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.880 it or what could make it worse, what could possibly 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.320 make it better, But really all it is is just 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.640 interrupted communication between two people. Because it's not like the 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.960 person who's who's stuttering uh stutters in their head, Like 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.360 it's strictly when they're speaking and communicating with other people. 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.920 So it's it's pretty it's a unique it's a unique condition, yeah, 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.720 and they're they're generally three ways in which that flow 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:27.440 can be interrupted. UM. One is is repetition UM. So 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.440 if you say the first few um, like the beginning 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:32.720 of a word, if you repeat it a few times 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.560 in a row and then say the word um. Another 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:39.680 would be prolongation. So if the word is like you would, 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.200 you would roll that l out by itself for a 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:46.120 long time, and then the last would be an abnormal stoppage, 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:50.400 which is just no sound at all coming out. Yeah block, Yeah, 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.440 a complete block. Have you you known anyone with a 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.320 severe stutter? Sure, yeah, I've I've I've known people with 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.600 stutters before. Yeah, I know somebody with a very severe stutter. 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.720 And it's always interesting because I think, and we'll get 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.320 to like what you should and shouldn't do as a 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:14.200 participant in a conversation with someone who stutters. But before 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:16.760 I read this, I knew that just as a courtesy, 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.680 what you probably shouldn't do, which is correct, is try 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:24.360 and complete someone sentence for them, even though that urges there. 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.960 You know, it's just a natural instinct because people do that, 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.840 you know, when speaking all the time, if someone can't 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:31.280 think of a word or something. But like you said, 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.720 that's not what's going on. No, no, And I mean that, 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:39.079 And I think that urge also comes from a good place. Typically, 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:44.400 like you're not you're not saying like, uh, pitch is 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:46.839 the word stupid. That's not what you're saying when you 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.839 when you when you finish their sentence, you're helping them 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:54.280 along to to keep the conversation on track, right, But 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.440 what you're also doing is saying you're not communicating effectively. 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.360 I'm jumping in and taking over. Were on your behalf. 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.040 Just sit there and be quiet. So um, yeah, we'll 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.200 talk more about what to do or what to what 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.440 not to do. When you're in a conversation with somebody 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.320 with a stutter, I don't know what you mean. You're trying, 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.320 you're trying to help, You're not trying to like be 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.080 a jerk. Yeah, but it's it's not a help. No, 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.760 it's not. But I imagine they also understand to a 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.120 certain degree to well, it's probably just from being exposed 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.400 to it so much for so long, and some people feel, 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.280 you know, like with anything like this, some people might 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.040 be used to it and have been like, well, you 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.040 know this how I talk. I've tried to correct it 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.200 and I've kind of learned to live with it, and 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.880 other people might still feel really bad about it. Yeah. 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.600 I I read a um, I guess an essay, a 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:50.760 blog post basically by a guy named man I can't 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.800 find it anywhere, great great blog post, um where he said, 0:09:55.400 --> 0:10:00.760 I I recognize and accept my stutter, and it was 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.640 on say dot org. His name is Danny lit wak 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.320 l I t w A c K lit whack. Maybe 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.400 I embrace and accept my stutter. It's great. He talks 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:13.880 about his UM, his experience with growing up with a 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.960 stutter his whole life, and just what a negative impact 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.200 it had on him for a very long time. And 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.000 I saw this elsewhere. But the first step toward UM, 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.840 either either getting past your stutter or just getting over 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.439 the fact that you have a stutter, is accepting that 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.760 you have a stutter. And that's a That's why from 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.000 what I can gather a really big first step, because 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.960 I think people recognize that they have a stutter to themselves, 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:46.880 but there's also a m there's they take measures to 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:51.120 protect against sharing that with other people. So I read 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.960 another UM a story about another person who grew up 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:57.440 with a stutter and when they got to I think 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.760 college or something. On the first day of this one class, 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.560 everybody went around and said where they were from, and 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.200 this person said that they forgot where they are from 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.520 rather than having to say Wilmington's Delaware because of the 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.000 W and the D. So instead they told the class 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.680 they forgot where where they where they were born and 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.600 grew up, because in that case there were certain triggers. Yeah, 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:20.760 the W and the D, the W and Wilmington's and 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.760 the D and Delaware. So there's like a lot of 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.680 obfuscation that people with with stutters engaging people with stutters 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.079 are not to be trusted in other words, but they 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.120 they have to they have to basically just take steps 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.240 to make it seem like they don't have a stutter. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.600 And I think what this guy, Danny lit Wack was saying. 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.040 And then, like I said, I saw elsewhere people saying, 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:45.880 like I have a stutter, like this is how I talk. 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.600 You're gonna have to like either just walk away during 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.880 the conversation or just let me finish my own time. 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.360 But this is me, and this is how I talk, 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.640 and I'm accepting it or learning to and you're gonna 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.000 have to as well. And that's the the first step, 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.920 as I understand it. Once you're an adult, I should say, 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.080 I think there's so many things in life where that's 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.560 the case. Oh yeah, instead of like at a certain point, 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.439 at a certain age, you I think at least I 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.960 got to a point where like, well I can really 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.440 continue to work to try and change this thing, or 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:19.240 I can just accept that this is kind of who 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:24.319 I am and be happy. Yeah, don't worry, be happy now. 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.040 So don't ever strive to be better people. Just accept 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.000 how messed up you are, enforce everyone else around you 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.240 to accept it. Should we take a little break here, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:36.680 all right, we'll take a break and we'll come back 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.920 and get into some of the stats and um, how 0:12:40.000 --> 0:13:08.840 stutters can develop right after this? All right, so we're 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:15.000 back promised stats. The stats you shall receive, um, one 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:22.280 percent roughly of adults in the world stutter. Yeah, but um, 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.720 that is not one percent of children because many times 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.839 have in fact about seventy at a time, um, well 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.480 five percent of children stuttering, about seventy five percent a time. 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:37.120 They will lose that disfluence as they grow older, leaving 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.120 that at a one percent number as adults. Yeah, and 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:42.520 so in the U s there's that means there's about 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.079 three million or so, maybe three and a half million 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:51.040 people adults that stutter. Right, Um, more women, yeah? Uh? 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:56.040 Is it more women, more men, more men? One it's 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.160 like four to five in childhood and then it was 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.280 too like three or four in adulthood. So by far 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:08.880 men stutter more than women and um, although in strangely 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:14.079 boys tend to naturally lose their stutter if they're going 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.439 to lose their stutter in childhood, more than girls. And 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.200 I don't think they found any rhyme or reason to 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.280 that at all. Right, No, man, there's there's like a 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.760 lot of lack of understanding as far as stuttering goes 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.440 scientifically socially, there's just that we just don't know that 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.040 much about it, which is surprising because apparently as far 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.400 back as Moses, people have been stuttering on record, and 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.760 we'll tell that story later, Okay, about sixty There could 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.440 be a genetic basis because about the people who stutter 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.280 have a family member who stutters. Yeah, and I also 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:55.200 saw that among monos i gotic, also known as identical twins, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.000 if one twin stutters, there's a nine chance that the 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.720 other one does as well. Interesting, but for diyes eye gotic, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.640 like fraternal twins, there's only a twenty percent chance. So 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.920 there's clearly a genetic basis to stuttering somehow, right, But 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.600 it's also one of those things where it can be genetic, 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.680 doesn't have to be. Um. Sometimes if you like suffer 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.479 a head trauma, you might develop a stutter, right, Um, 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:27.280 sometimes it's developmental. Sometimes there it could be obviously with 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:31.880 something like Parkinson's disease, that could be a symptom. But 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.560 those are to me, I think, probably different kinds of stuttering. 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:40.760 But right, so, there's basically two main categories. Developmental, which 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:44.760 is by far the more the one that it counts 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.360 for the most cases of stuttering, and then the others acquired, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.280 like you said, say from like Parkinson's or they put 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.800 you on a prescription that like suddenly is making you stutter. 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:00.520 There's also psychogenic, which is supposedly an emotional ama can 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.000 give you a stutter. I don't know if that's just 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.840 left over lore, because apparently they used to think all 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:11.480 stutters were the result of some psychology and they they 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.040 just say, well, no, it's possible, or some people have 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.240 it and just haven't figured out that it's not the 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.960 case at all, or if there really is a small 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.240 section of people who do have psychogenic stutters. But but 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.000 all of those would fall under acquired, And then the 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.360 other one is developmental. Boy, how about that guy that 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:32.680 took mushrooms and quit stuttering? Yeah, so interesting. I saw 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.400 Ted talk at his once really yeah. He um. He's like, 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:40.640 all about mushrooms saving the world. Paul's damn its yeah 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.520 yeah he um. He leads off our article on how 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.400 stuff works and he um, that's of your stutter. H 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.840 was very affected by it, kind of withdrew socially. Went 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.760 camping one time, took a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms and 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:58.920 climbed a tree, got up there, Uh, decided he could 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.560 not climb down. Um, and then the storm came in 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.520 and got really intense, and he he said he sort 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:10.520 of felt one with the world, um, which sounds about right. 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.840 And Uh, eventually the storm passed. He came down and 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.280 while he was up there during this intense experience, he 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.200 was like, I will not stutter anymore, and he just 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.960 kept saying that. Came down and he had lost his stutter. Yeah, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.200 and apparently he didn't relapse, which is pretty unusual, I think. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.679 So he started studying mushrooms for a living. He became 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.160 a mycologist. Man, I gotta I've said this before, I'll 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.000 say it again. One of the best articles I've ever 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.920 read my life was called blood Spore, and I think 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.080 it was in Harper's and it was um, it was 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.800 about a murder in the world of mycologists. It was 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:51.200 just so interesting blood spot coming soon to a theater 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.840 naming I hope, so you should write the script. So 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:59.840 Stammit's was remarkably lucky, and that he just basically decided 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:07.080 stutter anymore and stop stuttering. Um. Apparently, the fact that 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.760 he didn't relapse is probably what's most remarkable, because I 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:18.399 think relapsing among stuttering treatments is actually pretty common. Yeah, 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.119 but again, this is once you get out of childhood. 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.200 It's fairly common to have to develop a stutter as 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.720 you're a child, as you're learning to talk, and then 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.120 it's equally common to lose that that stutter as you 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:36.360 age um usually within eighteen months of developing the onset 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.159 of the stutter. Um. But then as you as you 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.520 acquire this or develop this stutter as you get older, 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.479 apparently becomes more and more set in. And that seems 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.120 to be because of the plasticity of your brain when 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.359 you're a kid start. It's almost like, from what I 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:01.040 can gather, it's like, if you have a stutter past 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.520 a certain point, it almost gets locked into your brain 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:11.560 as your neural pathways solidify and cement like you learned 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.760 to have a stutter after a while, and I think 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.400 they say to wait. I think they wait like three 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.400 months before they even start looking into it, because that's 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.600 how fleeting a stutter can be when you're a little kid. 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.320 After three months, they'll say, all right, maybe we should 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:31.720 start looking into this. Right, you would want to go 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.840 to a speech pathologist who will be able to diagnose it. 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.520 And usually what they're looking for when um, you take 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.200 your child who's developed a stutter to a speech pathologist, 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.760 is um how pronounced it is. There's a guy, um 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:53.679 and I think the late nineties named Barry Guitar. He 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:58.440 sounds like he played, you know, guitar for the band Boston. 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.440 He knows all the chords. No way, that's guitar George. Right, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.600 what's that from? Oh? Come on, guitar George. Is that 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:10.560 a Ray Stevens song? No, it's from Dark Straits sing 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.800 Oh gotcha? That's a good song. It is a good song. 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.359 Uh So Barry Guitar came with five levels of stuttering development. 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.879 And I already referenced the first. I know his name 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:26.880 is all just. I already referenced the first level, which 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.240 is you, um, you have blessed than ten percent of 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:34.640 your speech is disfluent. That's that's anybody walking around like that, right, 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:37.840 unless you're like the King of England or something. And 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.399 then ironically unless you're that one king who had a stutter. 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:44.840 Um and then it goes on the from there and 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.160 just gets worse and worse. But one of the things 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.119 that's attendant with these um these different stages of development 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:57.040 of a stutter are like emotional problems or symptoms like 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.640 co morbid symptoms along with the stutter. So there can 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:05.200 be things like blinking like um, like like pursing your lips, 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.440 where you're frustrated, where you're angry, where you're fearful, where 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:13.080 you're anxious, in conjunction with stuttering. And so this is 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.320 the kind of thing that the speech pathologists will be 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:17.560 looking for to kind of diagnose your kid like now, 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.240 this is just normal kids stuff. For actually this the 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.760 stutters developing faster than we'd like it too, so we 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.480 need to start treating it now. Well, that makes sense 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.800 because dopamine. We've talked a lot about dopamine on the 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:35.200 show The NEU transmitter. UM. If you have an overabundance 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:40.800 of dopamine. Um, we talked about in the Tourette's episode, 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:42.320 is that one of the things that can be co 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.439 morbid with stuttering, because I know too much dopamine can 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.119 lead to a stutter as well. Yeah, supposedly, Um. So 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:53.200 dopamine controls movement, right, and if you have too much, 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.040 it makes you have ticks. Like Tourette you're saying, well, 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:01.600 it can. So I noticed this. Um, Parkinson's and dopamine 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.760 are um, I think they're they're like Parkinson's has to 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:11.000 do with too much dopamine, and Parkinson's is one of 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:15.640 the ways that you could acquire neurogenically a stutter. So 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.119 that makes total sense that there's something in your brain 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.480 with dopamine transmission to where you have maybe too much 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.760 of it. And so you're you're trying to um, you're 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.160 having trouble but get getting the thoughts in your head 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:34.960 into the movements that it takes to create a speech. Yeah, 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.040 I mean it's a little clumsy the way the brain 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:39.840 does this. Um, it would be a lot easier if 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:41.920 it was streamlined and one part of the brain, but 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.840 there are two distinct parts of the brain that deal 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:50.040 with language processing, and one is the one that processes 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.320 it and one articulates it with UH in a motor 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.720 skill way. And when those two things have done brain 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.439 imaging mapping and they found that there's some sort of 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:06.320 discontinuity between those two processes going on. There's that's stuttering, right, 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:10.159 So it could be too much dopamine. That's one thing. Um. Again, 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:14.680 the research into stuttering is so basic at the moment, 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:18.560 it's it's really surprising. Um. What they're trying to figure 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:21.560 out though, is are you born with the stutter like 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.520 you when you're born, You're you're gonna have this problem 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:29.639 because you're your brain isn't um using dopamine properly, or 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:34.840 is overproducing dopamine or are you as your brain is developing, 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:38.399 something goes a little off to the side, to the 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:42.959 left and your brain has trouble with dopamine from that 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:45.560 point on. So they're trying to figure out the etiology 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:48.040 of it. In other words, did you look into this 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:52.040 uh the genes the four genes, Yeah, a little bit. 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:55.280 Did you find names for those? I did not? That 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:58.960 is how basic the research is right now. They're not 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:02.320 even saying what genes they're finding. Yeah, apparently they did 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:07.000 discover four different genes that are linked to these proteins, 0:24:07.040 --> 0:24:11.240 and these proteins are sort of like, um, they're responsible 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:14.320 for what's called cellular trafficking, so they kind of make 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:16.520 sure that the elements of the cell end up where 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:20.760 they need to be within that cell um. And they 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:25.720 said that more than one neurological disorder can be linked 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:29.840 to this trafficking process. So I guess it's related to 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:32.800 those proteins in those genes. Yeah, but they're like, who knows, 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:35.600 It's just like they've gotten to the point where they 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:40.919 have identified there's something up with these proteins in in 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:45.639 the cells and it's linked to stuttering somehow. Now just 0:24:45.640 --> 0:24:48.080 give us like ten years to go figure out how right, 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:51.480 But yeah, they're they're starting to realize now there's some 0:24:51.520 --> 0:24:56.400 sort of genetic basis to this two stuttering. Well, I mean, 0:24:56.520 --> 0:24:59.280 I think the twin study that says a lot right 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:02.919 there for sure. You know, um, should we can we 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:05.920 talk about Moses? I think it's high time we talked 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:08.520 about Moses. We've been dancing around the burning bush for 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:13.920 a while now. I can't believe that guy to laugh. Well, 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:16.720 I was laughing because every time I think of burning bush, 0:25:16.720 --> 0:25:19.479