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J "Defectologiya", 2000, #6, pp 28-37, "Shkola-Press", Moscow, Russia.
Specific physical exercises to improve stuttering.
Nabieva T.N.
Brain Institute of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, 105064, per. Obukha 5, Moscow, Russia.
In accordance with numerous investigations, the motor deficiency is one of the basic parts of stuttering pathogenesis. The combinations of various compulsive movements (muscular twitching, clonuses, spasms) with different intensity by different quantity of muscles participating in speech realization, provides multiformity of stuttering manifestation. As far as muscle deficiency is the main reason of pathological speech, it seems logical to use muscle exercises for stuttering facilitation. With this purpose, we elaborated individual courses of exercises for 30 adult patients with severe stuttering. Every day participants did exercises against resistance for articulatory, pharyngeal, vocal, facial, cervical and pectoral muscles depending on their participation in pathological movements. Within two weeks; duration of muscle spasms and convulsions had decreased, amount of prolonged muscle spasms and convulsions decreased approximately by half. Besides, number of syllable and vowel repetitions (in patients with syllable and vowel repetitions as the main stuttering manifestation) decreased. All patients felt facilitation of muscle spasms and improvement in motor speech. Thus, specific physical exercises mainly influence dynamic characteristics of speech, by diminishing muscle pathology and, as a result, improving speech realization. Exercises for different muscle groups can not completely eliminate stuttering, but may significantly reduce the time of complex therapeutic arrangements for overcoming stuttering. The obtained findings seem to be significantly enough to recommend the muscle exercises as a preliminary stage in the treatment of adult patients with severe stuttering.
Key words: stuttering, spasms, muscle pathology.
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