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WHEN stutterers speak in chorus, their speech impediment vanishes. And the
sound isn’t even necessary, say researchers in North Carolina—moving lips
will do the trick. Joseph Kalinowski and his colleagues at East Carolina
University in Greenville asked 10 people who stuttered to memorise a few lines,
then say them aloud. In one test, they recited the words to a motionless
research assistant. In the second test, the research assistant silently mouthed
the same text as they spoke their lines. Stuttering was reduced by 80 per cent
in this test (Neuroscience Letters, vol 281, p 198). What’s amazing,
says Kalinowski, is that his latest tests show that the research assistant did
not even have to mouth the same words.