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Reviewed by:
  • Stuttering research and practice: Bridging the gap ed. by Nan Bernstein Ratner and E. Charles Healey
  • Iman Makeba Laversuch
Stuttering research and practice: Bridging the gap. Ed. by Nan Bernstein Ratner and E. Charles Healey. London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999. Pp. 260.

The book under review is an outgrowth of the 1996 conference sponsored by the Special Interest Division #4 on Fluency and Fluency Disorders of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. As the editors point out in the first section of the book, it is sad irony indeed that a field so committed to improving human communication could suffer such misunderstandings. The express purpose of the collection then is to bridge the professional gap which has emerged between practitioners and scientists working in the field. However, as Anne Smith reminds us in Ch. 3: ‘Stuttering: A unified approach to a multifactorial dynamic disorder’, this is much easier said than done.

One of the most challenging and yet intriguing aspects of stuttering is the number of extra-linguistic factors involved. Accordingly, the second portion of the work is devoted to an interdisciplinary exploration of this linguistic phenomenon. For example, important summary information on biological correlates of stuttering are provided by Christy L. Ludlow and Luc F. de Nil. This neurological approach is then nicely complemented by a series of articles by a number of researchers working on the connection between speech production and the psychosocial environment (e.g. Gerald M. Siegel, Walter Manning, and Sheryl Ridener Gottwald). One of the most compelling of these contributions comes from Bill Murphy, who addresses the all too common experience of shame and guilt among stutterers.

Some time is then given to exploring the limitations of past research. For example, Ehud Yairi warns that far too often, far too little care is taken to control the degree of subject variation. Indeed, stutterers demonstrate great heterogeneity in, for example, the age of onset, the phenomena manifested, and the path(s) of treatment and recovery. As Diane Hill, Mark Onslow, and Anne Packman and Roger J. Igham and Anne K. Cordes remind us, these differences must be borne in mind when interpreting past research and designing future studies.

The third and final section of the book is devoted to addressing some of the political issues surrounding stuttering. Despite the mass of research to the contrary, in many societies speech fluency is still unquestioningly accepted as a manifestation of individual competence and intelligence—a sociological misconception which often has devastating consequences. As C. Woodruff Starkweather warns, professionals working in the field who continue to treat stuttering as a linguistic impediment to be removed at all costs may be unwittingly following this harmful mind-set. This being the case, a fundamental change in focus is suggested, one which has patient empowerment as its goal. And therein lies the real contribution of this newest collection.

Ultimately, the editors of and contributors to this work have succeeded in creating a well-researched, clearly written guide which will no doubt help to bridge the professional gap between therapist and scientist. They have also succeeded in producing a work which will benefit those stutterers and their families who must confront this issue daily.

Iman Makeba Laversuch
University of Freiburg
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