Are you a parent? Ever wondered how you and your spouse’s genes might combine? Many parents have found themselves in a tough place when they realize their child has a speech impediment caused by genetics. They tend to blame themselves for not being a better teaching or not putting their kids in a more social environment, but little did they know the cause could be totally out of their control.
LA Times reports that research by the government found a mutated gene which might be to blame for one in every 11 stuttering cases, particularly in people of Asian descent. Studies of speech impediments in families and twins have suggested that stuttering has a significant genetic component. Scientists haven’t been able to find a particular gene that might have caused this disorder. Experts say this finding is quite important because it highlights that stuttering, which affects as many as 1% of all adults in the world, is biological in origin and not the reason for parents doing a poor job or a factor of emotional distress.
The newly found genes are linked to wiping out metabolic wastes from brain cells and when a person happens to have two mutated copies of these genes, it creates a lethal disease. In the coming years research will help to locate which kids are more than likely to develop a stutter and then early treatments can be used to remove the problem completely. Further down the road research could figure out a way to eliminate this gene from producing so speech impediments could no longer exist. Five percent of kids develop a stutter in their elementary stage of life, most either grow out of it or are treated and 50%- 70% of stuttering cases are from a genetic mutation.
Geneticist Dennis Drayna speculates that eventually there will be a test for children to take that looks for the presence of the mutated genes, that way therapy can begin earlier.
“We hear every day from parents worried that they have caused their child’s stuttering,” Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation, said in a statement. “Parents don’t cause stuttering, and this research could lift the burden of guilt from their shoulders.”
Looking for a pathologist to help your child with a speech impediment? Find one near your home!
In other news, a gene could also be linked to children developing asthma…
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