A global study has identified DNA markers for people who experience stuttering.
Study co-author Janet Beilby, from Curtin University in Western Australia, said the findings provided a genetic link that would pave the way for clinicians to predict which family members would experience the speech disorder affecting more than 400 million people worldwide.
Associate Professor Beilby said the hereditary link was confirmed after one million people across the globe provided saliva samples.
She said the largest genetic analysis of stuttering uncovered 48 genes associated with stuttering and 57 associated genomic hotspots as well as finding a genetic link between stuttering and neurodiversity, emotional regulation and musical rhythm.
“This finding is life-changing for all those children who stutter. Stuttering is more than just a stutter – most children with a speech or language disorder (most notably a stutter) will be bullied at school and adults who stutter may face challenges in the workplace that can negatively affect their mental health and social wellbeing.
“Based on what we’ve found in this research, we will be able to take a DNA sample and predict if the individual is likely to stutter or not. If we can identify who in a particular family will develop a stutter, we can intervene earlier to prevent the potentially life-long consequences of stuttering that many people experience.”
Read the full study: Large-scale genome-wide analyses of stuttering.
