Friday, April 10, 2009

Analysis of latest "research"

Greg Snyder at stuttering.me did a good job in commenting on the latest research. In fact, he did a better job than I am going to do here, because I am quite busy. Here is how scientists usually read articles. Remember time is very valuable.


A life-time of stuttering: How emotional reactions to stuttering impact activities and participation in older people? Bricker-Katz G, Lincoln M, McCabe P. Disabil Rehabil. 2009 Apr 3:1-11.

ok. might be a bit interesting as i have never heard anything about older stuttering people and how they handle stuttering. is of course dead-end research and will do nothing for better understanding of stuttering. but might be interesting to know more about this age group and one can use it to exert political pressure for more ressources.


Speech skill learning of persons who stutter and fluent speakers under single and dual task conditions. Smits-Bandstra S, De Nil L. Clin Linguist Phon. 2009 Jan;23(1):38-57.

Good scientists. They really seem to be obsessed with the single/dual task performances. Not necessarily a bad thing. If you find a difference, you should zoom into it as much as possible. Will try to read, but i am nearly convinced it is like the other papers. not very clear what is really going on and no very clear effects. But will read abstract and probably ask for paper.


Peer Responses to Stuttering in the Preschool Setting. Langevin M, Packman A, Onslow M. Am J Speech Lang Pathol. 2009 Mar 30.

dead-end research. seems plainly obvious. complete waste of time. i can tell you what is happening. either i ask a few speech therapists of their experiences. that takes me 4 emails to write and within a week i am done. or i guess: some kids will notice, either asking why do you stutter or they might laugh. but most will just accept it. so what have we learned. NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL.


Social anxiety and the severity and typography of stuttering in adolescents. Mulcahy K, Hennessey N, Beilby J, Byrnes M. J Fluency Disord. 2008 Dec;33(4):306-19. Epub 2009 Jan 6.

dead-end and stamp collecting research. why do we need research to find out what all adolescents and adult stutters tell us. it is not easy in school and many of us experienced severe social anxiety.


Delayed auditory feedback effects during reading and conversation tasks: Gender differences in fluent adults. Corey DM, Cuddapah VA. J Fluency Disord. 2008 Dec;33(4):291-305. Epub 2009 Jan 3.

stamp collecting research. you make some observations and then? And I am never a friend of looking at speech data. way too down stream of the real issue.


Effects of altered auditory feedback (AAF) on stuttering frequency during monologue speech production. Antipova EA, Purdy SC, Blakeley M, Williams S. J Fluency Disord. 2008 Dec;33(4):274-90. Epub 2008 Oct 14.

also stamp collecting research. same as last one.


Non-linguistic auditory processing in stuttering: Evidence from behavior and event-related brain potentials. Hampton A, Weber-Fox C. J Fluency Disord. 2008 Dec;33(4):253-73. Epub 2008 Aug 30.

good scientists. might be interesting. will read abstract and might ask for paper.

16 comments:

Greg said...

Yep, that's about right--on all accounts...

Pamm said...

I hope I never do a research article on stuttering. I have always dreamed of doing this, but with you two, I am afraid of having my esteem ripped to shreds.

So much for dreams. I will try and concentrate on my coin collection.

Tom Weidig said...

But Pam then you can never be an actor in front of people, a sportsmen in a competition, a manager in a company, or a politician.

You need to go out there and expose yourself to criticism to grow. And you need to see this a a challenge to your brain and an opportunity to learn.

And finally, you can ask one of us to be your supervisor. Then you will be shielded of our criticism, of course! ;-) Or maybe not.

Nothing wrong with coin collections.

Tom

Norbert @ BSA said...

"is of course dead-end research and will do nothing for better understanding of stuttering." and

"dead-end research. seems plainly obvious."

This is all wonderfully daft, of course, but I must say I switched off after that one. Seems plainly obvious eh? Almost as plainly obvious as stammering *must* be due to enforced left-handedness and parental pressure. Or having been dropped on your head as a baby. Naturally that first sentence, to be honest, should read "will do nothing to help *me* understand what *I* am interesting in about stammering" which is fair enough, I suppose.

But as someone who's no longer as young as Greg Snyder and as someone who is in touch with older people who stammer who are concerned about their ability to communicate when they may be vulnerable or in care, stammering and its impact on older people is of significant interest. And quoting Langevin's dead-end research findings at people who make real decisions about the real world, in my humble experience, does make them sit up, take note, and effect change.

Tom Weidig said...

But Norbert, I said it was interesting to know more about this age group, because I do not know of any research on them and actually as far as I am aware the BSA has done little for them in comparison to others.

But it is dead-end in the sense that no other useful research can be built on top of it. It is more market research that anything else, which is fine if the BSA does this but we don't need to call it science and have it peer reviewed. And yes I am not that much interesting because I don't understand stuttering any better.

And there is no real point doing much more research into it really.

>> Seems plainly obvious eh? Almost as plainly obvious as stammering *must* be due to enforced left-handedness and parental pressure.

there is a difference here. if I lock you in a room and ask you about the impact of stuttering to kids in peer groups, your guess would be roughly what they found. But you would never guess the left/right stuff, or at least not everyone would be having this guess.

But it also depends on your experience in science and stuttering. I know this was chess. I loose against a grand master and I ask why not this move. He says it is loosing in the endgame because a and b, it is obvious. For him but not for me. I guess it is the same here.

Norbert @ BSA said...

"But it is dead-end in the sense that no other useful research can be built on top of it."
Well as you don't seem to have read it that's quite a leap. But 'dead-end' is a term laden with negative connotation and I wonder why you think you should use it.

"And yes I am not that much interesting because I don't understand stuttering any better."

Well, that's at least useful for the audience here to know. There's a bias here in the view you view and judge research and that, I think, should be made clearer perhaps. I guess the researcher didn't set out to make you understand stuttering a bit better (whatever that means), in line with thousands of other researchers all over the world. Seeing as 'making you understand stuttering a bit better' wasn't the aim of the research, why do you then think it should be judged against a target it didn't aimed to hit?

"there is a difference here. if I lock you in a room and ask you about the impact of stuttering to kids in peer groups, your guess would be roughly what they found. But you would never guess the left/right stuff, or at least not everyone would be having this guess."

Well, as I said it might have been obvious to you. I myself had a great time at school despite a moderately severe stammer and can't remember any episodes of bullying; in fact, it was mentioned twice by my teachers in all those 13 years at school and that was so unusual I still remember both occasions. So what's obvious to you might not be obvious to others. Though, from my experience of the helpline, it's quite 'obvious' to parents that they must have done *something* wrong to cause their offspring to stammer so there's not really any point doing all of this neurological research as the answer is staring us in the face. Obviously.

Anonymous said...

What about Ludo Max and Ed Conture?

Tom Weidig said...

>> Well as you don't seem to have read it that's quite a leap. But 'dead-end' is a term laden with negative connotation and I wonder why you think you should use it.

That is the point. Most scientists have little time so they take quick decisions. I cannot read it all so I prefer just to read the stuff that looks interesting.

I am using it because it is a dead-end for me! It will not lead to any other research. This happens all the time in research. No-one has to share my opinion.

But a decision I have to take, because my time is finite.


>>> Well, that's at least useful for the audience here to know. There's a bias here in the view you view and judge research and that, I think, should be made clearer perhaps. I guess the researcher didn't set out to make you understand stuttering a bit better (whatever that means), in line with thousands of other researchers all over the world. Seeing as 'making you understand stuttering a bit better' wasn't the aim of the research, why do you then think it should be judged against a target it didn't aimed to hit?

But I have to decide whether it is useful for me or not. And that is my opinion. I do not care about what researchers aim for. I just care about what they present or give me in terms of new information.

And every professional scientist is making these choices for him/herself every single day. They just don't write it down as I do.

You have a lot of management experience, and you will also often encounter situations where a novice or trustee tries to do something and you know it won't lead anywhere because you have the experience. And you might even tell them and then they ask but why, and they will not understand you because they have not experienced what you have already.


Tom

Greg said...

Great conversation guys... Here's my two-cents...

Right now, we're stuck in a holding pattern. We don't know much at all about stuttering, and those "in the know" are fully aware that we don't know much about stuttering. So we're in this holding pattern until there's a breakthrough that forces us to view the stuttering phenomenon differently.

In essence, we're in a pre-paradigmatic state, waiting around for a paradigm-shift, so-to-speak.

So to me, "dead-end" research simply means that it's data which won't take us to the paradigm-shift. It's mop-up work. Nothing wrong w/ mop-up work. Some of my articles are mop-up work, but it's not taking us to the next level.

I'm looking forward to tenure, when I can begin focusing on some out-of-the-box ideas, which will (hopefully) result in some people viewing the phenomenon from a new light. I know I'm not going to solve the stuttering enigma, but if I can help people get out of this rut--I'll be professionally satisfied.

Greg
http://stuttering.me

Anonymous said...

why wait until tenure...are you going to be smarter in a few years...why should they give you tenure?

Greg said...

Hi Anonymous Coward. The purpose of tenure is to give a researcher job security, such that they can think outside of the box and start coming up with new ideas and new perspectives. But in order to get tenure, you have to publish.

Now, if I've got a family to feed (which I do), am I going to try and publish new ideas that people are likely to initially reject (and not get published)? No. That would be stupid. So instead, you play the game for a while; show the university that you can do it; they give you tenure; and then you go off and attempt to create new paradigms.

So why should they give me tenure? Because they want to keep me here. And they want to offer me enough job security so I can pursue new and exciting ideas.

Greg
http://stuttering.me
http://stuttering.tv

Norbert @ BSA said...

Just one lst comment:

"You have a lot of management experience, and you will also often encounter situations where a novice or trustee tries to do something and you know it won't lead anywhere because you have the experience. And you might even tell them and then they ask but why, and they will not understand you because they have not experienced what you have already."

I think if I had that attitude I would always do what I've always been doing.

Anonymous said...

So Greg made the point. Because of some financial burden, you have to play the game, and hope that once you have the tenure, you can do whatever you want to do.

Probably others that published these so-called "dead-end" research had similar problems. Their students need some publications to fasten a job, they may not be able to solicit fund from NIH or whatever institution, or they are at the critical period to get the tenure or promotion. Or, simply, they don't want to alienate friends and colleagues by doing off-the-topic studies.

These are real restrains and one way to loose these restrains is to have a political/societal motion to solicit more funding possibilities to stuttering. For this aim, I don't see an end to these "dead-end" research.

Anonymous said...

Why should people reject your Big Idea if your idea is Good, if you are a good stuttering researcher.

Are people not fair?

Or are you just waiting to get "tenure" so you have the freedom to talk more bullshit?? (this is important question!)

Greg, you are the coward because you are afraid to publish...what is your new idea? stuttering.me?

you sound like a politican, yes, get me elected, then I will do great things.

oh no, just wait until I am the President or Mayor, then I will be superman...

It is total bs, are you a bs so called researcher? We should nominate you for the Nobel Award in talking bs.

Stop using your family as an excuse. Have some courage! Tell the truth now? If you have....maybe you are not so great (those who think they know, don't know...)

Anonymous said...

I just don't understand your logic: that you have to produce bs/crap/useless research to get tenure, then you say you are going to change face all of a sudden and tell the truth and be fearless. I don't believe you, Greg...I believe in Tom. He is telling the truth and NOT afraid....

Anonymous said...

Strange that people who wallow in self-hate find so much joy in spreading it to others. If you are not satisfied with the research in stuttering, I suggest you go after bigger issues like cancer, ALS, AIDS vaccine, or the failure of stem cells to be of any clinical value as of yet. Maybe even talk about the lack of insight into world economic issues...or did you foretell the downturn of late?