Monday, November 02, 2009

Parliamentary Question on Stuttering


I managed to get Claude Meisch to ask a parliamentary question on the state and treatment of stuttering in Luxembourg. His request should carry considerable political weight, because he is not only a member of parliament, but also the Leader of the Opposition in Luxembourg at the youngish age of 38. For our US friends, he would be the Luxembourg version of John Boehmer/John McCain, pardon I mean Rush Limbaugh. For our English friends, David Cameron. Many thanks to him!

His question is addressed to the The Minister of Health and the Minister of Education, which typically reply in an official letter and in parliament, and at least should address some of the questions addressed in the parliamentary questions. The questions asked were rather polite, and do not touch the more sensitive issue on how it is possible that our national experts are quoted in an article making blatantly false statements on the causes of stuttering that the press release has neatly taken apart. Nevertheless expect both ministries to ask some rather existential questions internally: What is stuttering? Who is responsible? What do we actually do? Is this connected to the press release? Who is this Tom Weidig? Have you read his blog? How many are in treatment? How many have been in treatment? And so on. And the answer is that no-one has seriously thought about stuttering and I am not even sure they can dig out good long-term treatment data. I hope that they are coming up with some real answers or constructive proposals and not just some alibi answers.

The only thing I am not too excited about is that Claude Meisch choose to stick to the diplomatic "causes of stuttering are uncertain" and the brow-rising "can be controlled or cured with speech therapy and psychological intervention" lines. Too much room to wiggle out for our trauma-causes-stuttering and kids-imitate fetishists escaping the significant evidence for a neurobiological basis and for therapists to claim cures. In any case, it is progress.

1 comment:

Ora said...

Tom - Do you have the full text of Claude Meisch's question? Can you share it with us?