Thursday, January 29, 2015

Australian study screens baby's brains

Here is a report on an Australian research study which screens baby's brains. Those babies have stuttering siblings, which make them more likely to develop stuttering. How successful is this study going to be?

As always in Australia, Mark Onslow is involved. He was probably the person who worked hard to get the money and the people together, something he is good at. The outcome of his studies is not always so good unfortunately. First, the outcome study of Lidcombe early childhood intervention was problematic and a review a few years later was unable to locate all the kids who actually had taken part in the treatment. Second, there was a long-term study on stuttering on a large scale, but I haven't heard of the results at age 5, for example, even though the study should have those data. Long-term studies are always sensitive to many factors, e.g. people leaving, money running out, people using interests.