Facts About Stuttering

The more we understand stuttering, the better we can educate others about it. The NSA has partnered with leading stuttering specialists and researchers to provide accurate information about stuttering. Here are a few facts about stuttering:

• Stuttering usually begins in childhood, between the ages of 2 and 5 years.

• It’s estimated that about 1% of the world’s population stutters, though about 5% of children go through a period of stuttering.

• Stuttering can begin gradually and develop over time, or it can appear suddenly.

• Stuttering is a speech pattern involving involuntary disruptions, or “disfluencies”, in the flow of speech. Stutter-like disfluencies include sound/syllable repetitions (e.g., “n-n-no” or “wha-wha-whatever”), single-syllable whole word repetitions (e.g., “my-my-my”), audible sound prolongations (e.g., “shhhhe”), and inaudible sound prolongations (i.e., blocks; e.g., “...you”). Stutter-like disfluencies are typically produced with tension, arrhythmicity, and/or secondary behaviors (e.g., eye blinking, facial grimacing). Typical disfluencies produced by speakers who do and do not stutter include phrase repetitions (e.g., “who was who was that”), phrase revisions (“my frie- my best friend”), multisyllable whole word repetitions (“because-because”), and interjections (e.g., “um,” “you know”).

• When people stutter, they feel like they have lost control of their speech mechanism. This sensation of loss of control can be disconcerting and uncomfortable, and it can lead to embarrassment, anxiety about speaking, and a fear of stuttering again.

• Stuttering can be a genetically-influenced condition: most of the time, if there is one person in a family who stutters, there will be another person in the family who also stutters.

• Stuttering is associated with differences in the brain; it is not just a behavior that children learn or pick up from listening to other people who stutter.

• The way a person stutters (e.g., their types of disfluencies, tension patterns, secondary behaviors) may vary and change over time. A person who stutters who primarily displays blocks may begin to demonstrate repetitions later on. This variability is normal!

• Stuttering is more common among males than females. In adults, the male-to-female ratio is about 4 to 1; in children, it is closer to 2 to 1, with more male than female children continuing to stutter into adulthood.

• As many as 80% of young children who begin to stutter ultimately stop stuttering. Those who continue to stutter into the school-age years are likely to continue stuttering throughout their lives.

• Stuttering varies significantly over time: Sometimes, people will have periods in which the stuttering appears to go away, only to have it return. This variability is normal.

• People who stutter may try to avoid stuttering by speaking quickly, pushing through moments of stuttering, word substitution, circumlocution, avoiding feared speaking situations, or choosing not to speak at all when they fear they might stutter. These behaviors can cause psychological distress, increase physical tension, and lead to a greater adverse impact of stuttering on a person’s life.

• Stuttering also varies in frequency across speaking situations. Again, this variability is normal.

• For people who stutter, there is so much more to the stuttering experience than just the observable disfluencies. The overall impact of stuttering on their lives may  cause the most concern. Therefore, speech therapy for stuttering should also account for the ways that stuttering affects the speakers’ life.

• Citizens of every nation and speakers of every language across the world stutter. Multilingual speakers who stutter will stutter in every language that they speak; however, stuttering may present differently in each language. For example, sound and word repetitions are not even considered true stuttering in bilingual Spanish-English children, and blocks and prolongations hold a lot more weight in the determination of stuttering in these children.

• People who stutter can be effective communicators regardless of how much they stutter. They may require additional time to speak compared to speakers who do not stutter.

These are just a few facts about stuttering. It’s important to know the facts about stuttering because it will help to dispel the common Myths About Stuttering