What is stuttering?

This blog post has a lot of information in it. What better way to relay a lot of information than…lists? I got most of my information from the book If Your Child Stutters: A Guide For Parents from the Stuttering Foundation. We have several copies at our office that we are willing to lend out. Without further ado, let’s start those lists!

What stuttering is not:

• A bad habit
• A disease
• Normal disfluency (which is what everyone experiences at times; not everyone stutters though
• Caused by neglectful mothers (a theory from the 1970s; thank goodness we have evolved in both psychology and evidence-based practice) 

Signs of stuttering:

• Primary characteristics:
• Multiple repetitions
• Whole word repetitions
• Can-can-can we do that?
• Part-word repetitions
• W-w-w-we have donuts!
• Filler words
• Um-um-um-um yea, I like going on the slide.
• Schwa sound
• Also known as the “uh” sound
• Unlike a part-word repetition, this distorts the word
• Muh-muh-muh-mouse 
• Prolongations
• Prolongating a sound
• Mmmmmmmmommy

• Secondary characteristics:
• Tremors
• This includes physical tremors of the muscles around the mouth or in the face when speaking
• Rise in Pitch and Loudness
• This happens when the voice gets louder or higher pitched when a disfluency is happening to try and “get out of the stutter”
• Tension in the voice and body
• This includes other physical tensions in the body that occur with a disfluency
• Signs of fear
• If a person seems fearful of saying certain words or talking because of stuttering
• This could range from a momentary flash of fear on the face to crying
• Avoidance
• This could be avoiding saying certain words or sounds or avoiding talking all together in certain situations

Risk factors for stuttering:

• Family history of stuttering
• Age at onset 
• Children who stutter before age 3 typically outgrow it within 6 months
• Children who start stuttering after age 3.5 are less likely to outgrow it 
• Time since outset
• Children who outgrow stuttering will typically do so within 12-24 months
• Gender
• Boys are 3x more likely to stutter than girls
• Other speech and language problems

Other things to know about stuttering:

• 1% of all people stutter.
• Everyone is disfluent at times, some more than others, and can still be within typical limits. Stuttering goes beyond typical disfluencies. 
• Stuttering is a episodic disorder, which means it works like a pendulum. The severity and frequency varies greatly for the same person.
• Stuttering is not an indicator of below average intelligence.
• Many famous and intelligent people stutter. 
• Some people stutter their whole lives and will never outgrow it. For those people, therapy does not “cure” stuttering. The goal for therapy at that point becomes giving people who stutter the strategies for controlled speech and the confidence in using those strategies, even if they are having trouble speaking fluently.

What you can do if your child stutters:

• Do not continually say, “Slow down” or, “Say that again”. Instead, model slow speech yourself.
• Encourage an environment of slow speech and giving people time to talk without filling in words for others or talking over others. Many times, just showing that you are listening to your child without judgement no matter how long they take to say something helps to ease tension and fear over speaking.
• Try not to bring too much attention to the stutter. Instead, you can use phrases such as “smooth speech” and “bumpy speech”, labeling speaking styles. If they are taking their time to talk and easily stuttering (versus a tension-filled speech), tell them that you like their nice, smooth speech in that instance. 
• Relax. Honestly, relax. Your child is still special and unique no matter how they speak. I know it can be hard worrying about what other people will think or say about your child. However, your child will pick up on this fear and become fearful themselves. Increasing your tolerance for disfluencies will help as your child will still be able to pick up on your underlying nervousness of stuttering even if you do not react to stuttering instances.

Obviously, there is a lot more information on this subject. Please reach out to us if you would like to have your child (or yourself) evaluated for fluency disorders. Our contact info can be found in our bio.

Until next time!

Kathleen

Resources:

If Your Child Stutters: Sixth Edition. (2002). Stuttering Foundation, Publication No. 11.