Stuttering Paper

According to Singular's Pocket Dictionary of Speech-Language Pathology â€Å"stuttering is an articulatory or phonatory problem that typically presents in childhood and is characterized by anxiety about the efficacy of spoken communication, along with forced, involuntary hesitation, duplication, and protraction of sounds and syllables. † Stuttering can be witnessed in the rate, pitch, inflection, and even facial expressions of a speaker. The cause of this problem is not set in stone, which leads to countless theories as to why people stutter. Along with numerous theories as to why people have this disorder, there are also limitless treatment methods that can be used to help a speaker with a stuttering problem. Stuttering has been a controversial topic among professionals for hundreds of years, and we are still learning what works and what does not work for this curious disorder. The etiology of stuttering is not certain to this day. Many professionals are torn between the psychological and neurological theories as to why people stutter. There are many theories which explain stuttering as a psychosomatic problem that can be dealt with by using psychotherapy. The â€Å"Repressed Need† hypothesis explains that stuttering is a neurotic symptom which is fixed in the unconscious. The repressed need is said to come from a longing for either oral or anal gratification. The stutterer is able to satisfy their anal erotic needs by the â€Å"holding back of words that may represent a hostile expulsion and retention of feces. † This theory is closely related to Freud’s Oral and Anal stages. Some theorists believe that stuttering is caused by the â€Å"Anticipatory struggle†. The anticipatory struggle hypothesis explains that p63 â€Å"stutterers interfere in some manner with the way they are talking because of their belief in the difficulty of speech. † The stutterer is so frightened of making a mistake during speech they in turn avoid, brake, or interject their words and sentences. Stuttering is thought to be a variant disorder, meaning it can affect a person in certain situations that bring them great anxiety or fear. Using a phone and speaking in front of a group of people are examples of this . Although many signs point to a psychological explanation for stuttering, genetic and neurological problems have also been tied to stuttering. Early theorists, like the Roman physicians believed stuttering was related to an imbalance of the â€Å"four humors†, and humoral balance treatments were used to treat stuttering until the late eighteenth century. A more modern explanation of a neurological problem that causes stuttering would be the â€Å"cerebral dominance theory†, that explains conflict between the two hemispheres of the brain is the cause of stuttering. Stuttering has many different types of specified dysfluencies. Although there are hesitations and interruptions found in all speakers, the disfluency found in stutterers seems to be more severe. There are several forms of dysfluencies when dealing with stuttering including interjections, repetitions, and revisions. A stutterer can encompass one or many dysfluencies ranging from minor incidents to very extreme episodes of stuttering. Interjections occur frequently in both fluent speakers and dysfluent speakers. An interjection occurs with the speaker uses â€Å"uh† or â€Å"er† while speaking. Repetitions also are common for stutterers. Repetitions can occur in part of the word ,† wh wh what† in the entire word, â€Å"what what what† and in phrases, â€Å" what do what do what do you want? † Revisions during sentences such as,†I was, I am going† also happen often, along with broken words; I was t—alking, and prolonged sounds like the â€Å"wa† sound in what are also usual in stuttering. Like other speech disorders, stuttering mainly occurs in children who show no evidence of having any other type of disorder. Stuttering comes in many shapes and forms and can be slight to extremely severe, making the all characteristics of this disorder always subject to change. Stutterers encompass hesitation, interruption, revisions, broken words, and prolonged sounds in their speech making it hard for people to follow. While most of the characteristics of a stutterer are only apparent when listening to them speak, there are also many secondary characteristics a stutterer may have. The secondary characteristics vary from person to person, however most of them occur in the face or hand motions. Visible characteristics include tension in the face, which can be seen when the speaker is talking and their face seems to turn sour and flushed. Stutterers also may frown, jerk their head, move their eyes erratically, or wrinkle their foreheads during a speech interruption. Stutterers show secondary characteristics in their hand movements and gestures as well. When stutterers feel tension which is usually caused by frustration of speech, they sometimes react by waving their arms and hands. This can sometimes help the stutterer to get out a word, phrase or sound they are trying to express. Vocal abnormalities are also present in some stutterers, including abnormal inflections in tone, and sharp pitch level shifts. A person can begin to stutter at any time, however most cases are recorded at a young age; most frequently between the ages of two through six. An estimated fifteen million individuals world wide, including three million Americans stutter. A child can be diagnosed from eighteen months, when words starts to progress into more fluent speech. The median age of onset according to a study done by Daley (1955); which included fifty young stutterers recorded that the median age of onset was 3. 87. Occurrence becomes less frequent with age, and seems to be tied to the development of language. Although there are millions of stutterers in the United States most of them will â€Å"recover† by adulthood. According to Andrews and Harris’s (1964) research that included 1,000 stutterers; 79% of children will stop stuttering by the age of sixteen. Boys are three times more likely to develop a stutter then a girl would according to the 3-1 ratio concluded by â€Å"US Nationwide, 1-12† Hull el at (1976). Assessing a stuttering disorder can be done in many ways including, recognizing the frequency of the specified disfluency type, calculating the mean duration of stuttering, speech rate, and articulation of the person’s speech. When measuring the frequency of the stutter, the speech pathologist can try to account the percentage of moments of stuttered words or syllables. This is a popular way of diagnosing a stutter, since it is easily reportable. Speech pathologists can use electronic counters to measure the number of syllables stuttered during a speech session. A speech pathologist can also evaluate a patient by checking their speech rate. Checking a speech rate is done by the examination of abnormalities in the respiration, like disordered breathing, and phonation, such as breath holding. A professional can also make assumptions on a patient by listening to how long a stuttering block lasts for. An average duration of a stuttering block is one second, and in some severe cases of stuttering a block can last for an entire minute. When dealing with the treatment of a speech disorder like stuttering, the patient has many options, which may or may not work for them. Since stuttering usually begins at a young age, behavior therapy has been a popular method of treatment that may halt the progression of stuttering in children. In behavior therapy for early stutterers, the clinician can recommend the child to speak slower and smoother by teaching them a relaxed pattern of speech. Modeling and mimicking are excellent ways to help a child with a stutter to over come their impediment. Psychotherapy is another modern way of treatment among professionals. Psychoanalytical therapy can help the stutterer to over come their anxieties of speech, and give them the confidence that they lack. Speech therapists play a role in the treatment of stuttering by helping the patient modify their speech patterns. It seems that most stutters are able to talk in song, so the speech pathologist can teach the patient to speak rhythmically. Helping a person speak rhythmically can be taught by using hand and finger movements to assist the stutterer â€Å"move along† their fluency. While this is an effective treatment for stuttering, some patients might relapse and their learned hand movements become useless and the learned tendency can then become an abnormal secondary characteristic. Although the effectiveness of therapy is unclear, the patient has the option of many treatments, and eventually a stutterer may find something that will work for them or as in many cases, the person might recover spontaneously. Stuttering is classified as a speech disorder, however there is much more to this disorder that meets the eye. Researchers are still trying to pinpoint the exact cause of stuttering but one thing they can all agree on is that the emotional pain a person with a stutter lives with can affect them for the rest of their lives, even after the disorder subsides. Aside from the anxiety, shame, and fear that go along with this speech problem, many people go ahead to live seemingly normal lives. Through out history there have been countless successful individuals who stutter, ranging from Winston Churchill to James Earl Jones which goes to show that while stuttering can be difficult to overcome it does not deter a person from reaching their fullest potential.

Critical Period and Language Acquisition Essay

Part of the reason why Genie’s case fascinated psychologists and linguists so deeply was that it presented a unique opportunity to study a hotly contested debate about language development. Nativists believe that the capacity for language is innate, while empiricists suggest that it is environmental variables that play a key role. Essentially, it boils down to the age-old nature versus nurture debate. Do genetics or environment play a greater role in the development of language? Nativist Noam Chomsky suggested that the acquisition of language could not be fully explained by learning alone. Instead, he proposed that children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), an innate ability to understand the principles of language. Once exposed to language, the LAD allows children to learn the language at a remarkable pace. Linguist Eric Lenneberg suggests that like many other human behaviors, the ability to acquire language is subject to what are known as critical periods. A critical period is a limited span of time during which an organism is sensitive to external stimuli and capable of acquiring certain skills. According to Lenneberg, the critical period for language acquisition lasts until around age 12. After the onset of puberty, he argued, the organization of the brain becomes set and no longer able to learn and utilize language in a fully functional manner. Genie’s case presented researchers with a unique opportunity. If given an enriched learning environment, could she overcome her deprived childhood and learn language even though she had missed the critical period? If she could, it would suggest that the critical period hypothesis of language development was wrong. If she could not, it would indicate that Lenneberg’s theory was correct. Genie’s Language Progress Despite scoring at the level of a one-year-old upon her initial assessment, Genie quickly began adding new words to her vocabulary. She started by learning single words and eventually began putting two words together much the way young children do. Curtiss began to feel that Genie would be fully capable of acquiring language. After a year of treatment, she even started putting three words together occasionally. In children going through normal language development, this stage is followed by what is known as a language explosion. Children rapidly acquire new words and begin putting them together in novel ways. Unfortunately, this never happened for Genie. Her language abilities remained stuck at this stage and she appeared unable to apply grammatical rules and use language in a meaningful way. At this point, her progress leveled off and her acquisition of new language halted. While Genie was able to learn some language after puberty, her inability to use grammar (which Chomsky suggests is what separates human language from animal communication) offers evidence for the critical period hypothesis. Of course, Genie’s case is not so simple. Not only did she miss the critical period for learning language, she was also horrifically abused. She was malnourished and deprived of cognitive stimulation for most of her childhood. Researchers were also never able to fully determine if Genie suffered from pre-existing cognitive deficits. As an infant, a pediatrician had identified her as having some type of mental delay. So researchers were left to wonder whether Genie had suffered from cognitive deficits caused by her years of abuse or if she had been born with some degree of mental retardation.

How have the culture and mentality of the Chinese contributed to their Research Paper

How have the culture and mentality of the Chinese contributed to their success as entrepreneurs - Research Paper Example This unusual success is based on the Chinese culture and customs. Chinese school of thought Confucianism has deep roots with the entrepreneurship. Confucianism evokes qualities like hard work and constant struggle and also suggests that people should do such actions which become a source of pride for not only their family but for the state also. The Chinese custom of saving money and not using more than their needs, help them to investment in their business. Confucianism allows its followers to lead a loyal and modest life, and not using corruption as a tool to progress. Along with other qualities like interpersonal relation, self discipline and risk taking, the importance given by Chinese government on education has helped them to come up with latest and innovational solutions in the field of science and technology. The state is now taken extra steps to motivate young individuals to enter in the world of entrepreneurs and try to facilitate them in every way. Loans, coaching and help are offered to the interesting candidates. Thus their culture and the policies offered by the country helps the Chinese entrepreneurs to succeed beyond others. ..

Health Economics by Bolnick Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Health Economics by Bolnick - Essay Example It shall also discuss the personal, political, and ethical drivers of these two chosen health care systems. Bolnick emphasizes that there can be no ideal model for the health care system to apply. He also points out that pigeon-holing the health care system into a model is not a prudent move because the health system has unique peculiarities based on personal, social, and political factors. According to Bolnick (2003), the wants and needs of the health care system is driven by ethical and political considerations. The politics of nations differ from each other. For instance, the public health care system of the United Kingdom was adapted in response to the turmoil and chaos that the Second World War created (Bolnick, 2003). After the war, its people were also in a favourable state of mind to accept a socialised and public health care system, hence, the conditions were favourable in the UK for the introduction of such system. And, it proved to be beneficial for the people. In fact, â €Å"since the implementation of the NHS, the United Kingdom has experienced longer life expectancy rates and concomitant change sin disease patterns† (McCarthy and Schafermeyer, 2007, p. 525). Tulchinsky & Varavikova (2000) also describe the United Kingdom as a unitary state; as such, its health system is rooted at the local authority level. They further point out that UK’s national health system slowly developed since the 19th century and evolved to the comprehensive system it is today.

Conflict of Interest Applied to a Modern Day Journalism Issue Essay

Conflict of Interest Applied to a Modern Day Journalism Issue - Essay Example This essay approves that a conflict of interest issue has been documented in Canadian journalism. The reports that Canadian journalism has turned into a strange place riddled with secret businesses and sex scandals. This report makes a conclusion that conflict of interest often comprises the competition of personal, financial, or professional obligations with an individual’s accountability to their audience and organizations. Such competing interests could challenge the individual’s ability to fulfil their duties impartially, and could potentially influence their performance and duties. Conflict of interest situations faced with journalists include writing about their family members and friends, contributing in press junkets, and accepting hospitality. When journalists are compelled to make decision with competing tenets, it culminates in great damage either on their professional duties or on personal lives, thus developing a conflict of interest. This conflict of interest often involves personal, financial, or professional obligations, which compete with the journalist’s accountability to their media audience and organization. Canadian journalism has turned into a strange p lace riddled with secret businesses and sex scandals. This makes it hard to fathom how competent journalists interviewed groups to which they had personal connection without the knowledge of their employers raising serious issues of conflict of interest and integrity in journalism.

The United States government should ban gun control laws Research Paper

The United States government should ban gun control laws - Research Paper Example Watson (2005) argue that the gun politics have become a significant issue whereby many political leaders have come up with ideologies relating to possessing guns through illegal and non-illegal use. They address this issue basing on the safety of the state, but the gun politics deals with the issue of regulations, personal possessing of firearms and restriction of using guns. The issues of gun control have become the foremost debate in the United States. This is  because the proponents argue that owning guns will contribute to widespread danger whereas the opponents argue that it is one of the individual rights for self-security. Gun politics in the US has been a serious and long debate in the American politics. The debate concerning the possession of guns has been for long decades the issue. Some politicians argue that the gun control should be prohibited whereas others argue that gun control should be permissible. Those who support the US citizens from possessing the guns argue t hat it is one of the constitutional act of individual right of self-security. They argue this basing on the second Amendment of constitutional right bill that permits and protects individual rights of owning handguns. This constitution right was ratified in December 1971 together with other Bill of Rights. However, the Supreme Court ruled out the second amendment of permitting an individual to own handguns in a state for self-protection. The arguments in favor for banning the gun control laws are varied. First, the society requires reasonable gun control laws. The local and federal government enacted laws that protect and defends the property of people in the US. Thus, proponents of restrictive gun control laws argue that, by under- regulating, the law will put the state residents at unreasonable risk. This is because the community requires reasonable gun control that would not create any risk to the public. Crooker (2003) asserts that the American people may feel  unsafe in case the government allows everyone in the community to carry a gun. Although the government may ban gun control, they should prohibit ordinary citizens from using the gun in the public places such as schools, hospitals, churches and market places. The government should offer the citizens of US a right for reasonable protection from any causes of danger especially danger of using the gun. Secondly, high rates of firearm related violence and increased deaths such as homicides are behind the  need for banning the gun control. The proponents of gun control argue that the gun control should be made illegal. This is because owing personal firearms will contribute to increased crimes such as homicides and increased deaths in a state. The research report of 2011 indicated that about 47 percent of people in US own personal firearms in their houses (Watson, 2005). Thus, about 20 percent of homicides occur in many parts of the US because many families own private handguns. Therefore, banning gun control is essential because it will reduce cases of homicides, which are common in some states, in the American society. Those supporting the ban of gun control believe that by restricting gun ownership in the US state, government will be able to lessen gun related crimes such as suicide and homicides. This is because the research report indicates that gun related crimes are high in US with the majority of homicides being reported to be high followed by suicide. Watson 2005) argue that gun related

Organizational Strategies for Quality Assessment and Improvement Research Paper

Organizational Strategies for Quality Assessment and Improvement - Research Paper Example The availability of equipment will ensure protection of personnel and promote organizational safety culture. The organization system should also avoid blame games and work towards solving problems from where they arise. The idea is for the organization to work as a team through openness and transparency in ensuring a culture of safety. Inclusions of the workers in the safety culture motivate the individuals in contributing to the quality improvement. The model works better for mutual communication between employees and management (Shekelle, Wachter, Pronovost & United States, 2013). Besides, the commitment of the management to ensuring that safety culture is successful, and teamwork motivates other employees in improving the services quality. The leaders’ commitment to achieving the goal of a culture of safety plays a vital role in ensuring the whole program is successful. A paper program without commitment will not lead to improved quality and safety hence there is a need for management to act appropriately. The leaders should play their part through listening and implementing workers contribution towards improving safety. Implementation of the workers idea encourages them to find solutions for any existing problems in the organization including safety. Management can only achieve these safety and quality improvement through communicating to the employees (Longo,