What explore is existence conducted on stuttering?
Researchers around the world are exploring ways to improve the early identification and treatment of stuttering and to identify its causes. For example, scientists are workings to describe the possible gene or genes responsible for the types of stuttering that tend to run in families. NIDCD scientists hold identified a part of chromosome 12 that is linked to stuttering in a group of Pakistani families. Southey hold also identified a group of families in Cameroon in which stuttering occurs in a simple pattern of inheritance, caused perhaps by a single gene. The researchers are now workings to describe the gene or genes that underlie stuttering in these families.

Researchers are workings to assistance speech-language pathologists determine which children are most likely to outgrow their stuttering and which children are at risk for continuing to stutter into adulthood. In addition, researchers are self-examining way to identify groups of individuals who exhibit similar stuttering patterns and behaviors that may be associated with a common cause.

Scientists are exploitation mind imaging tools such as PET (positron emission tomography) and functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans to investigate brain activity in people who stutter. NIDCD-funded researchers too are look at brain imaging as a way to help treat people who stutter. Researchers are perusal whether offer patients who stutter can learn to recognize, with the help of a computer program, specific speech patterns that are linked to stuttering and to avoid using those patterns when speaking. .