Research Objectives

A Short Story,

This journey began with my own stammering. I never had a speech therapy or medical treatment due to a lack of awareness, as widespread misconceptions made many believe stammering was just nervousness or fear – something that could be “fixed” by simply speaking correctly.

After getting my first job, stammering became a major blocker in my early career. While my work performance was good to average, I struggled during office meetings, presentations, and everyday communication with colleagues. This not only affected me but also created difficulties for my team. Eventually, certain life events made the situation serious enough that I had to solve my stammering and seek real solutions.

These all things led me to explore speech therapy, and I tried few programs with claims like cure stammering in 15 days or a month. I travelled to many states, even remote locations, where people claimed to have herbal remedies for stammering or some 100% cure treatments. While I won’t generalize, most of these programs were ineffective and didn’t address the root cause of the problem. However, speech therapy does have its benefits, which I have discussed in the solutions section.

Most of this solutions focus solely on teaching people to speak correctly with lot of practice without addressing the root cause or providing any measurable way to track the progress. Most of these programs rely on the placebo effect, where a person feels an improvement temporarily simply because they paid the money and taking actions. However, after a few days or weeks, they often find themselves back at the same point, with no real progress. Then I began exploring books and research on speech and hearing science.

A Turning Point :

I began researching how the speech mechanism works, exploring the factors and processes involved. Being from a software and analytics background, I started researching how to make a solution by which we can track the difference between a fluent speaker and myself. I wanted to find a way to detect and analyse stammering using technical data, measurable reports, and its underlying causes.

I began this research journey in mid-2019. I took the help of a few neuroscience experts and professors. Additionally, just to have domain knowledge I completed a part-time PhD program in Human Speech and Hearing Sciences. I discovered that stammering was not merely a speech issue but it is development of specific neurological condition affecting the coordination between the brain and speech muscles which could be addressed by realigning the speech mechanism.

Objectives of this Research :

1. Explore and understand the root causes of stammering and other speech and hearing challenges.
2. Identify and develop method to calculate measurable differences with brain imaging modalities like structured and representable datasets. (I want to make it as blood test report)
3. Develop targeted solutions that directly address those underlying factors.
4. Ensure the solutions are practical, simple, and accessible to everyone.
5. Move beyond generic approaches (e.g., breathing exercises, long repetitive practice) by focusing on evidence-based methods.
6. Track and validate progress using neuroimaging and scientific analysis.

I explored multiple brain imaging techniques, using image processing to enhance and manipulate raw data, followed by quantitative analysis, prediction models combined with other factors. This approach helped me a lot identify specific patterns related to the causes of stammering and track an individual’s progress while working on a solution, all aimed at detecting and measuring stammering in numerical terms.

Explore more on “Neuro-AI Analysis Pipeline” and “Stammering and Brain Difference”