Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A poem by Ashaur Rahman

Just read the latest publication of Speaking Out, the magazine of the British Stammering Association (BSA). A member, Ashaur Rahman, got into the finals of The Brit Writers' Awards. Here is one of his poems with the very informative title Stammering.
S ubstituting words helps me when I chat
T his disability people always laugh at
A ... A...Ashaur is my name
M ost people don't understand my pain
M entally it's exhausting; physically it's frustrating
E nchant yourself when you are singing
R epeating words is just an occurrence
I ceberg analogy is a resemblance
N ever let anyone belittle you
G ain confidence that you never knew

5 comments:

ig88sir said...

Hello,
Neurosurgery may sound a bit extreme to treat stuttering but since stroke victims regain their ability to speak by neuro-compensation why can't this be true for Stutterers? Knock out the defective area for a possible adjacent left hemisphere compensation? I read an article that 4 left handed stutters (like myself) had neurosurgery later in life for neurological lesions and they ceased to stutter. Perhaps the article is misleading.

Here are a few links:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T8H-45RC9MB-2M&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F1981&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1463861555&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=16d7b4dbf3288e2d4956d0d95c033bc3&searchtype=a

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20726757?dopt=AbstractPlus

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC494084/pdf/jnnpsyc00207-0130.pdf

O said...

To igr88, the 4 stutterers you're talking about were patients of Dr R.K. Jones :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC496017/

Another recent case :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20799135

ig88sir said...

Why can't we use TMS to briefly turn off sections of the brain to find out what section is most optimal to permanently turn off? I know it's not that simple but what hope do we have in our lifetime? Gene Therapy and even Enzyme Replacement Therapy is a ways off for us. And in case you haven't found out.. speech therapy doesn't work.

Tom Weidig said...

@ig88sir:

1) TMS is tricky to aim at the correct spot.

2) regions are used for several task, so you can't just switch them off.

3) why would this make something fluent? I am not sure that one region is cause the stuttering but is not needed for good speech.

ig88sir said...

Yes TMS is tricky but it is only temporary and rather safe from what I've heard. Well I am not a neurologist so I am not sure. My comment was due to the article I read about the 4 left handed PWS becoming fluent after surgery. It is like stoke compensation. It may help or it very well may make things a great deal worse. It was just a thought..
I personally believe there are PWS out there that would take the chance.