Keynote Address

Multiple facets of stuttering: insights from brain and behavioural research

Luc De Nil

The complex and idiosyncratic phenomenology of developmental stuttering suggests the influence of an intricate interaction between neural, behavioural and environmental variables, which results in the onset, development, maintenance or recovery of this speech fluency disorder. From behavioural studies, we know that individuals who stutter differ from typically fluent speakers in how speech movements are controlled and coordinated, even when overt speech is perceptually fluent. Research also has shown that the coordination of articulatory movements can be affected by linguistic complexity and other cognitive or environmental demands, and that adults who stutter appear to be less adapt at acquiring and automatizing new speech and nonspeech motor skills. Recent neuroimaging studies have yielded some important neural signatures that provide greater insight why people who stutter show these behavioural manifestations. In this presentation I will review some of the behavioural and brain imaging data in developmental stuttering, discuss some recent findings on acquired stuttering that may provide additional insights, offer a framework within which the research findings can be interpreted, and endeavour to look into the future how these insights may provide the tools allowing us to optimize clinical intervention for stuttering.