Stuttering theory,research, and therapy: A five-year retrospective and look ahead

This article reviews events in stuttering theory, research, and therapy that have transpired during the past 5 years. After the retrospective review, current work in the area of stuttering is examined. This analysis of the past and present was conducted in an effort to give clearer direction to future efforts to understand the disorder, and to study and treat it more effectively.     

A case report on the use of flooding in stuttering therapy

The last several years have seen the development and use of anxiety-reduction procedures in stuttering therapy. Among these types of methods, systematic desensitization and reciprocal inhibition have been employed almost exclusively. Emotional de-conditioning by means of flooding or implosive techniques has been attempted far less often. This article presents a case report on the utilization of the flooding tactic. Results are offered and discussed relative to the question of whether the elimination of anxiety is a realistic goal in therapy. The suggestion is offered that what many stutterers may really need to develop is the ability to generate fluency-enhancing behaviors in spite of the presence of heightened emotionality.     

Word production and comprehension in Alzheimer's diseáse: The breakdown of semantic knowledge

Relatively mildly impaired patients with suspected Alzheimer's disease (N = 14; Verbal IQ = 96) and normal controls of similar age and education (N = 11) were administered tests requiring production (naming and fluency) and comprehension of single words. Word comprehension was assessed on a superordinate level (rating words for degree of “pleasantness”) and on a more specific level (matching abstract pictorial representations with printed words denoting objects, actions, emotions, and modifiers). Performance on standardized measures of semantic knowledge (Vocabulary and Similarities subtests of the WAIS) was also evaluated. The naming and fluency abilities of the Alzheimer's patients were found to be highly correlated (r = .80) and impaired. Naming errors often consisted of semantic field errors which were either hierarchically or linearly related to the target name. In comparison with normals, verbal fluency was characterized by a tendency to generate proportionally more category names concurrent with reduced production of items within a category. Single-word comprehension was also impaired, except when judgments of affective meaning were required. It was argued that these results suggest that Alzheimer's disease may lead to a specific disruption in semantic knowledge characterized by a difficulty in differentiating between items within the same semantic category concurrent with the relative preservation of broader categorical information.     

Guilty knowledge versus innocent associations: Effects of trait anxiety and stimulus context on skin conductance

A simulated lie detection procedure was used to investigate skin conductance responsivity among self-reported skin responders. Subjects were grouped according to reported trait anxiety as measured by Lykken's Activity Preference Questionnaire and then engaged in either a mock crime or a neutral activity. The “crime” gave subjects “guilty knowledge,” and the neutral task provided “innocent associations” to relevant stimuli imbedded in each scenario. Subjects were then interrogated using Lykken's Guilty Knowledge technique. Anxiety classification, guilty vs. innocent treatment, and type of stimulus were manipulated in a 2 × 2 × (2) factorial design. Results for differential responsivity scores showed significant main and interaction effects. Low-anxiety subjects showed almost no effects, but highly anxious subjects responded strongly in the “guilty” rather than the “innocent” treatment. Contrary to previous findings, results showed a substantial—but qualified—relationship between self-reported anxiety and electrodermal responsivity. Also, the Guilty Knowledge technique with rank scoring yielded 97.5% correct classification.     

Emerging Medical Technologies and Emerging Conceptions of Health

Using ideas gleaned from the philosophy of technology of Martin Heidegger and Hans Jonas and the philosophy of health of Georges Canguilhem, I argue that one of the characteristics of emerging medical technologies is that these technologies lead to new conceptions of health. When technologies enable the body to respond to more and more challenges of disease, we thus establish new norms of health. Given the continued development of successful technologies, we come to expect more and more that our bodies should be able to respond to ever-new challenges of environment and disease by establishing ever-new norms of health. Technologies may aim at the prevention and treatment of disease, but they also bring about modifications of what we consider normal for the human being. Thus, new norms of health arise from technological innovation.     

Animals and humans,thinking and nature

Studies that compare human and animal behaviour suspend prejudices about mind, body and their relation, by approaching thinking in terms of behaviour. Yet comparative approaches typically engage another prejudice, motivated by human social and bodily experience: taking the lone animal as the unit of comparison. This prejudice informs Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s comparative studies, and conceals something important: that animals moving as a group in an environment can develop new sorts of “sense.” The study of animal group-life suggests a new way of thinking about the creation of sense, about the body, the brain, and the relation between thinking and nature.     

Why talk about sin? Luther's understanding of sin and hopeful sin-talk in the 21st century

For Luther talking about sin and the sinful nature of human beings has a strong pastoral significance. His emphasis on the “bondage” of the human will is tightly connected to his insistence on the human sinful condition, and our inability to choose to be or not to be held captive by sin. My conclusion is that it is indeed important to continue to talk about sin if the Christian discourse about God's forgiveness and grace is to make sense. Furthermore, I believe Luther's understanding of sin as misplaced trust, the distinction he makes between sin and sins, and his idea of a justified sinner can indeed make a significant contribution to a hopeful sin-talk within Christian communities today. It is, however, necessary to pay attention to Luther's historical context and to reevaluate his understanding of human nature and human sinfulness from a feminist critical perspective. The sin-concept has gradually been losing its relevance within Christian communities. Therefore the question: why should we continue to talk about sin? The aim of this article is to explore Luther's understanding of sin and human sinfulness, in order to find out if, and then how, he might prove helpful when it comes to the interpretation of the concept of sin in the 21st century. The focus is on Luther's pastoral writings in The Small and The Large Catechism (1529), together with his Smalcald Articles (1537).     

On the nature of the verbal memory deficit in Alzheimer''s disease

Verbal memory was investigated in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) with previously documented deficits in word production and comprehension. Procedures were employed to evaluate word recall and recognition within the context of both "multistore" and "levels of processing" models of memory. In addition, memory abilities were evaluated with respect to performance on measures of verbal fluency and language comprehension. As expected, the AD patients performed significantly worse than normal individuals on all tasks. However, in each experiment their pattern of recall across conditions was found to be qualitatively similar to that produced by normal subjects. It was argued that the memory impairment associated with Alzheimer's disease may be largely due to an inability to encode a sufficient number of stimulus features or attributes. Furthermore, this encoding deficit includes, but is not limited to, semantic attributes. Similarities between the performance of the AD patients and reported findings with Korsakoff patients and normal subjects with "weak" memory were discussed.     

Calling a Thing What It Is: A Lutheran Approach to Whiteness

The July 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in killing of African American teenager Trayvon Martin and the aftermath demonstrated that America is not yet cured from “the cancer of whiteness” that infects the heart of American Christianity. This article interrogates “whiteness” as a pressing American and religious issue. It looks to Martin Luther's theology of the cross as a way to both expose the sinfulness of whiteness and to offer a framework for dislodging it.     

Wittgenstein and the Phenomenological Movement: Reply to Monk

Abstract

Monk’s ‘The Temptations of Phenomenology’ examines what the term ‘Phänomenologie’ meant for Wittgenstein. Contesting various other scholars, Monk claims that Wittgenstein’s relation to ‘Phänomenologie’ began and ended during 1929. Monk only partially touches on the question of Wittgenstein’s relation to the phenomenological movement during this time. Though Monk does not mention this, 1929 was also the year in which Ryle and Carnap turned their critical attention toward Heidegger. Wittgenstein also expressed his sympathy for Heidegger in 1929. Furthermore, though in 1929 Wittgenstein agrees with the early Husserl on relating logic and science to phenomenology, it is not clear that they mean the same thing by either logic or phenomenology, or that they agree on what the relation between the two should be.