Content
So, as a clinician, there are a couple things that would be helpful to have, but a) I don't know that the technology exists to achieve them b) there are often simpler, more straight forward means of achieving the same ends. First, there is no diagnostic test for stuttering that exists. The only confirmatory test is a full speech / language evaluation with disfluency count. An app that could count speech syllables in ongoing speech would be fantastic. An app that could count speech syllables and tally disfluent syllables would make the clinician's post-evaluation life so much simpler. This will likely be most useful for clinicians working with children who may be stuttering or may be excessively normally disfluent (the hard part --not all disfluencies are considered 'stuttering'). However, adults who stutter might use it as well if one of their goals is to reduce frequency if disfluencies. Although this would be extremely helpful, I'm doubtful something like this is easily and inexpensively producible. Second, one of the most common things I tell parents of children just starting to stutter is to keep a daily journal of how their child's stuttering was that day. Was it a severe day? Was it a mild day? Was there a time today that stood out to you? This is helpful because stuttering is variable. So, something that might be helpful is a simple app with a Likert scale with values ranging from no stuttering at all to most stuttering imaginable. Allowing the data to be plotted would help parents identify trends towards recovery or persistence in their child's speech. Third, one thing we do with school age children who stutter is learning to identify moments of stuttering. First in other people then in themselves. Capturing their own disfluent speech is super easy. A repository of videos of children and adults who stutter stuttering would be helpful towards this end.