Friday, July 17, 2009

More useless and directionless research

And there is more useless and directionless research on stuttering wasting student's academic lives and most likely taxpayer's money:

Communication attitude of Italian children who do and do not stutter.
Bernardini S, Vanryckeghem M, Brutten GJ, Cocco L, Zmarich C.
J Commun Disord. 2009 Mar-Apr;42(2):155-61. Epub 2008 Nov 12. PMID: 19095245

The effect of stuttering on communication: A preliminary investigation.
Spencer E, Packman A, Onslow M, Ferguson A.
Clin Linguist Phon. 2009 Jul;23(7):473-88. PMID: 19585309


Let's take the first one. Is anyone seriously thinking that Italian kids are different to any other kids in any other country apart from cultural differences? Should we now do research on Communication attitude on German, Vaticanese, Australian, Black, White, big nose, big smile kids? What is the point?

And then another paper from the Australian journal article manufacturing facility. The biggest warning sign is of course the preliminary investigation. If you read the pre somewhere, run, run fast.

What more is there to be looked at in communication? It is OBVIOUS to me that communication is distorted, and who cares exactly how? Surely it is person dependent. If you want to look at consequences, at least look at other useless but fun topics like: Mating behaviour of stutterers vs non-stutterers? Do stutterers stutter while having sex? Do stuttering students avoid going to the toilet even when in desperate need because they need to ask the teacher verbally to leave the classroom? Must we therefore educate the teachers?

If you can't think of a more creative way to doing research, DO NOT DO RESEARCH! Do something useful: talk to your kids, your wife, your boyfriend, go to the gym.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um, wouldn't clinicians care to know exactly how communication is distorted in stutterers? All the better to diagnose them, right?

Anonymous said...

Tom,

You wrote:
"If you read the pre somewhere, run, run fast."

I would've added, "If you see the name Onslow on any paper, it will certainly be useless unless it is printed on soft absorbent paper"

Hiten Vyas said...

Tom you said the following:

'Mating behaviour of stutterers vs non-stutterers? Do stutterers stutter while having sex?'

I loved it! Absolutely hilarious!! Hope things are ok with you, Best wishes, Hiten

Norbert said...

"Is anyone seriously thinking that Italian kids are different to any other kids in any other country apart from cultural differences?"

So, what you mean that apart from you conceding that they actually *are* different culturally (which I guess would imply reacting differently to the social impact of SLCN) children in Italy are *no* different to children in, say, Japan. So, are they different or aren't they?

Sometimes it might be an idea to put a rant on paper and leave it for three days before publishing it. In my humble opinion.

Anonymous said...

I think it is useful research in a bigger-picture sense. For you, Tom, it may have no direct relevance as you are a person who stutters and the effect it has on communication is very obvious to you. But what about to a person who doesn't stutter? As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, the vast majority of politicians do not stutter, and they are the ones with the power to change public health policies that allocate money to services that help people who stutter. Research such as the Onslow paper provides evidence that can presented to those who need to understand the consequences stuttering has on communication, so that they make positive decions at a political level.

Tom Weidig said...

To the last anon,

I agree with you that you could use it as a political tool to "prove" that people who stutter have communication problems.

BUT I would argue that EVERYONE with a bit of common sense must know that anyway. Moreover, we only have to show them a few documentaries on stuttering, let them speak in public to get the same effect.

So I argue that you do not need to do science to find this out. Just compile first person experiences and play the movies...

You can of course argue that our system needs scientific evidence and that simple documentaries are not enough which is in my view a complete waste of resources.

So now that Onslow has done this do we need to do it again? Every 5 years? For every country? Every age? Both genders? For gays? Where do we stop?

I believe that the consumer associations already do enough to document...

Anonymous said...

Onslow used to have x publications, now he has x + 1 publications.

The title is weird, maybe justification for more funding???

God said...

Hey Tom, how about for every negative blog you post, you post something positive. Or 2 negatives = 1 positive. You know, people read your blog.....now you have the power and the influence after blogging for the psst few years. With great power comes great responsibility....right?

Tom Weidig said...

Yes, but EVERYONE else is making the positive comments so I don't need to make them....

As I said, I speak my mind and my mind looks at flaws foremost for it is the flaws that impede progress.

I give a counter-balance to the all-good everyone-is-happy noone-is-incompetent atmosphere..

Tom

Anonymous said...

"You can of course argue that our system needs scientific evidence and that simple documentaries are not enough."

Tom - I would argue this. No-one is going to listen to a wishy-washy documentary no matter how creatively it is produced. It would be like taking the opinions of the audience off a Jerry Springer episode as fact.

"BUT I would argue that EVERYONE with a bit of common sense must know that anyway."

In the case of stuttering, the implications of the disorder are not well known to the majority of individuals, so it is problematic to make that assumption I feel.