The fallacious mind.

I want to talk more about the onset of stuttering and how parents, therapists and researchers often draw fallacious conclusions. They often see the onset of stuttering being related to X (be it the birth of the younger sibling, the kid being attacked by a dog, high fever, below-average language & speech capabilities, and so on), and conclude that there is a direct causal relationship. However, this is fallacious, because there are other explanations for a relationship that are not causal. The human brain has evolved to automatically search for explanations. If an event happens, you scan your environment or immediate past for explanations, and stop when you found one. This effect is especially pronounced when the event occurs suddenly like the onset of stuttering often does. We need explanations. If you cant find them, we still find them: Blame the gods.

Example: My kid starts stuttering. His brother was born a few weeks ago or I am heavily pregnant. Therefore, onset is caused by stuttering. Or, some kids that start stuttering have slower-than average language development. Therefore, slow language development causes stuttering. Or, I heard my kid stuttering the first time a day after a big dog scared her and she broke out in tears. Therefore, the dog causes stuttering. Or, my kid cried a lot and became more withdrawn, and then she started stuttering. Therefore, something cause it to be distressed which causes stuttering.

Lets be rigorous and systematic, if A is related to B, then many combinations are possible in order of likelihood:

A and B are not causally related but a pure coincidence i.e. related by chance.
A and B are not causally related because C caused A and B to happen.
A and B are not causally related (in the right order) because B caused A.
A and B are causally related.

Each of the four example can be explained by a non-causal explanations.

Example: My kid starts stuttering. His brother was born a few weeks ago or I am heavily pregnant. Therefore, onset is caused by stuttering.

Possible Non-Causal Explanation: Both onset and birth are indirectly related, i.e. they both often happen at roughly the same time due to the nature of human development and off-spring production.

Example: Some kids that start stuttering have slower-than average language development. Therefore, slow language development causes stuttering.

Possible Non-Causal Explanation: Kid had a neurological incident (head injury, virus infection, perinatal hypoxia, low birth weight) or genetic makeup that produced havoc in the developing brain leading to BOTH slow language development AND stuttering.

Example: I heard my kid stuttering the first time a day after a big dog scared her and she broke out in tears. Therefore, the dog causes stuttering.

Possible Non-Causal Explanation: Both event happen by chance at the same time. The kid like millions of others just got scared and cried, and that's it! You can always find a event to relate to onset. Kid started stuttering and something more dramatic ALWAYS happens like death of family member or friend, distressing situation like doctor's visit, thunderstorm, and so on.

Example: My kid cried a lot and became more withdrawn, and then she started stuttering. Therefore, something cause it to be distressed which caused stuttering.

Possible Non-Causal Explanation: This is a cool one. Actually stuttering caused the distress! The kid started to feel that it couldn't pronounce well in private, and it got distressed. The mother noticed this but not the dysfluency which she only noticed a few days later!!! The mother made the mistake in that she thought she had all informations on the events which she didn't have. She just saw one side of the story line!

I explicitly wrote possible non-causal explanation, because if such an explanation exists, it does not imply that it is the right one. There might be a causal explanation that is the correct one or that the effect is a combination of 2 or more explanations. It is only possible to find the right one from the many possible one by careful research. But my rule of thumb is: If there is a non-causal explanation, it will be the right one in 95% of the cases! (because most relationships in life are non-casual)