There is increasing interest in understanding how vulnerabilities in brain function are associated with fluency disorders, such as developmental stuttering, a disorder characterized by the involuntary production of repetitions, prolongations, and silent blocks during speech. We research speech and language ability at multiple levels of analysis, includes measures of brain function (EEG and fMRI), autonomic nervous system activation, neuromuscular activation (EMG), articulatory kinematics (motion capture), and perceptible speech behavior. It is our hope that increased knowledge of the interpersonal neurophysiology underlying fluent speech performance will improve treatment approaches for individuals with speech-language disorders

Recent scientific research has made great strides in identifying the complex mechanisms that play a role in fluency disorders, such as stuttering and cluttering. For most people who stutter, it is likely that speech disfluency emerges in early childhood due to aberrant interactions between parts of the brain responsible for cognition, language, emotion, and speech motor control. However, it remains unclear how these aberrant interactions directly produce stuttering behavior, and develop across the lifespan