A palmar sweat measure of the effect of drugs on stuttering behavior

Abstract

The question is asked why drugs designed to affect physiological responses associated with anxiety do not affect stuttering if the antecedent of stuttering is anxiety? Sixteen stutterers and sixteen matched controls each participated in four conditions which were twenty-four hours apart. There were two experimental conditions where the subject received medication prior to participation. One drug was nembutal and the other benzedrine. There were also two control conditions; one in which the subject received a sugar pill and the other where he received nothing. Three simultaneous measures were made of Palmar Sweat Index (PSI), number of non-fluencies, and reading rate. The order of participation among the conditions was counterbalanced. As a main effect the study indicated that drugs do not affect stuttering. However the interaction of drugs with the order in which drugs were administered was significant. Subjects who received nembutal as the first condition stuttered more on all four conditions than those subjects who received nembutal last. Benzedrine had little effect on stuttering. It was concluded that nembutal causes a release of stuttering and stuttering, once released, gets conditioned to the situation and continues at a high level. Theoretical explanation for such findings is presented.