Een selectief overzicht van sensorische integratieproblemen van spraak en niet-spraak bij individuen die stotteren

Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying stuttering is widely acknowledged as fundamental to informed diagnosis and treatment. We believe that efforts to achieve such an understanding can greatly benefit from an approach in which specific hypotheses are derived from a theoretical framework that is consistent with empirically-verified models of sensorimotor control and neural functioning. Here, we selectively review prior and recent stuttering research from other laboratories as well as from our own laboratory in the context of current theoretical insights into the neural control of movement. Although by no means a comprehensive literature review, this work discusses studies demonstrating that (a) the fluent speech and reaction times of adults who stutter are generally slower than those of adults who do not stutter, but such differences may reflect strategies to compensate for more fundamental sensorimotor difficulties, (b) stuttering individuals’ sensorimotor difficulties are not limited to the speech production system but extend across effector systems, (c) consequently, both speech and nonspeech sensorimotor learning are limited in individuals who stutter, and (d) fundamental impairments in sensorimotor integration may a key component across all these observations given that individuals who stutter show an atypical modulation of sensory processes even prior to movement onset.