One Week of Speech Therapy May Help Patients Who Stutter by Reorganizing Brain

Just one week of speech therapy may reorganize the brain and help to reduce stuttering, reports a study out of China that appears in the August 8, 2012, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The research provides new insight into the role of different brain regions in stuttering, which affects about one percent of adults.

The study involved 28 people who stuttered and 13 people who did not stutter. Fifteen of those who stuttered received one week of therapy with three sessions per day. The other stutterers and the controls received no therapy. Therapy involved having the participants repeat two-syllable words that were spoken to them and then read words presented to them visually — there was no time limit in either task. The average scores on stuttering tests and percent of stuttered syllables improved for those who received the therapy. For more information, click here to read the full release.