The pebbles of Demosthenes, the King’s speech, and the genetics of stuttering

Communication breakdown. The Greek orator Demosthenes was said to treat his speech impediment by talking with pebbles in his mouth and shouting above the roar of the ocean waves. US Vice President Joe Biden, brutally nicknamed Joe Impedimenta in school, worked on his stuttering reading Emerson and Yeats aloud. Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson overcame blocks and pauses while talking by interjecting his trade mark profanity. Given the list of famous people who stutter including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Theodore Roosevelt, I feel in pretty good company. I am a person who stutters myself, even though my speech impediment is currently mild. Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental disorder whose genetic architecture is entirely unexplored on the molecular level but clinically shares resemblance with many other neurodevelopmental disorders that we have written about on this blog. Today is International Stuttering Awareness Day. I have thought back and forth about whether I want to write this post given my personal involvement as a person who stutters and the resulting lack of objectivity. However, I finally decided to do so in order to put stuttering where it belongs – on a research blog about neurogenetics. Continue reading