DO STUTTERERS HAVE NEUROLOGICAL ABNORMALITIES?
Brain scans of adult stutterers have found several neurological abnormalities: • During speech adult stutterers have more activity in their right hemispheres, which is associated with emotions, then in their left hemispheres, which is associated with speech. Non-stutterers have more left-hemisphere activity during speech. It is unknown whether this abnormal hemispheric dominance results from something wrong with stutterers’ left-hemisphere speech areas, with right-hemisphere area unsuited for speech taking over speech tasks; or whether the unusual right-hemisphere activity is related to fears, anxieties, or other emotions stutterers associate with speech. • During speech, adult stutterers have central auditory processing underactivity. What this means is unknown. One study suggested that stutterers may have an inability to integrate auditory and somatic processing, i.e., comparing how they hear their voices and how they feel their muscles moving. • A brain scan study examined the planu
