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From: Ryan Pollard
Date: 19 Oct 2008
Time: 16:50:47 -0500
Remote Name: 70.57.41.136
1. Aside from the small risk of impacted cerumen, which exists with many prosthetic in-the-ear devices, we didn’t find any side effects from prolonged SpeechEasy use. 2. I wouldn’t call feeling satisfied with the device despite no overt improvement in fluency a placebo effect in the traditional sense of the word. If a subject reported benefits from wearing the SpeechEasy while it was not turned on and delivering AAF, that would be a placebo effect. I think what you’re referring to are instances when subject’s reported increased confidence or decreased avoidances despite the fact that their actual stuttering had not changed appreciably. This was an interesting occurrence that we documented and illustrates how multifaceted a person’s complete opinion of a stuttering treatment can be. 3. Your idea could definitely be translated into a worthwhile research project. As many of the posts on this discussion thread have shown, there’s a need for the development of a practical tool for distinguishing potential SpeechEasy responders from nonresponders.