Active clinical trials for "Stuttering"

The purpose of this research study is to understand how speech and language are processed in the brain. This study will provide information that may help with the understanding how speech and language are processed in children and whether there may be differences between children who stutter and children who do not stutter. This project will evaluate these neural processes for speech signals in children who stutter and control subjects through a battery of behavioral speech and language tests, electroencephalography-based (EEG) tasks, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and computational modeling.

Persistent developmental stutter / childhood onset fluency disorder is a disabling condition leading to significant communication and psychological disability. Established treatment consists of intensive speech therapy, and whilst initially effective, has a waning long-term benefit. Our research team aims to provide evidence of stutter management by addressing the primary neurological issue in this disorder using Deep Brain Stimulation. The investigators propose to perform bilateral DBS on 3 participants with stutter refractory to intensive speech therapy, to determine a response in their stutter. The assessments will be double-blinded. The investigators will use the outcome of this small pilot study to determine the feasibility and details of a larger randomized controlled trial.

The specific purpose of this clinical trial is to compare performance on rhythm perception and production tasks between children who stutter and children who do not stutter. The overall project also aims to investigate how performance on rhythm tasks may be related to brain activity (non-clinical trial).

This research is being done to better understand stuttering, specifically how people who stutter may process and/or produce speech. Eligible participants enrolled will complete a variety of computer and speech-based tasks on up to 2 visits.

This study will compare speech variability between preschool-age children who stutter and typically fluent, age-matched peers. Differences in emotional reactivity, regulation and speech motor control have been implicated in stuttering development in children. This study seeks to understand further how these processes interact. Children will repeat a simple phrase after viewing age-appropriate images of either negative or neutral valence to assess speech motor control.

The aim of work is comparing between three different methods for treatment of stuttering in children in order to reach to the best method for treatment

The purpose of this research study is to find out the potential benefits and safety of asenapine (Saphris®) in adults who suffer from the developmental form of stuttering. It is hypothesized that individuals who are randomly assigned to asenapine will have an improvement in speech as compared to a placebo.

Persistent developmental stuttering affects more than three million people in the United States, and it can have profound adverse effects on quality of life. Despite its prevalence and negative impact, stuttering has resisted explanation and effective treatment, due in large part to a poor understanding of the neural processing impairments underlying the disorder. The overall goal of this study is to improve understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in speech motor planning and how these are disrupted in neurogenic speech disorders, like stuttering. The investigators will do this through an integrated combination of experiments that involve speech production, functional MRI, and non-invasive brain stimulation. The study is designed to test hypotheses regarding the brain processes involved in learning and initiating new speech sound sequences and how those processes compare in persons with persistent developmental stuttering and those with typical speech development. These processes will be studied in both adults and children. Additionally, these processes will be investigated in patients with neurodegenerative speech disorders (primary progressive aphasia) to further inform the investigators understanding of the neural mechanisms that support speech motor sequence learning. Together these experiments will result in an improved account of the brain mechanisms underlying speech production in fluent speakers and individuals who stutter, thereby paving the way for the development of new therapies and technologies for addressing this disorder.

Research studies in stuttering have shown that activity patterns in certain brain areas differ in people who stutter compared to people who do not stutter when speaking. The purpose of this study is to investigate how mild, non-invasive brain stimulation applied consecutively for five days affects speech relevant brain areas, which may in turn affect speech fluency and speaking-related brain activity in people who stutter.

The majority of the latest research suggests that stuttering is associated with significantly elevated levels of trait and social anxiety. The prevalence of children who stutter and have attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ranges from 4 to 26%. About 10-20% of children who stutter might show ADHD. Gender ( male) is the dominant risk factor for stuttering, as also applies to other neurodevelopmental disorders. Examples include attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder, tics and the Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS). These neurodevelopmental disorders are the second -most prominent set of comorbidities with stuttering. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and stuttering share many characteristics in addition to temperament . A complex interplay of neural differences, with genetic and environmental components, has been reported as a possible cause of both disorders. In addition, both may appear more frequently in boys than in girls . Furthermore, it is emphasized that childhood stuttering can be accompanied by aspects of ADHD . Likewise, children exhibiting signs of ADHD more frequently display speech disfluencies than their peers. It is suggested that children with stuttering and those without stuttering will display different profiles in terms of temperament, certain aspects of ADHD, and some types of anxiety. In addition, it is to be expected that there will be some correlations between these variables in children who stutter. However, it is not possible to draw definite conclusions about this issue that could be generalized to all children who stutter. Furthermore, there are very few studies that deal with combinations of these variables .