Stuttering

Stuttering is a speech disorder in which the normal flow of speech is disrupted by frequent repetitions or prolongations of speech sounds, syllables or words or by an individual's inability to start a word. The speech disruptions may be accompanied by rapid eye blinks, tremors of the lips and/or jaw or other struggle behaviors of the face or upper body that a person who stutters may use in an attempt to speak. Certain situations, such as speaking before a group of people or talking on the telephone, tend to make stuttering more severe, whereas other situations, such as singing or speaking alone, often improve fluency.

Stuttering may also be referred to as stammering, especially in England, and by a broader term, disfluent speech. Stuttering is different from two additional speech fluency disorders, cluttering, characterized by a rapid, irregular speech and spasmodic dysphonia, a voice disorder.

• How is speech normally produced?
• Who stutters?
• What causes stuttering?
• How is stuttering diagnosed?
• How is stuttering treated?
• What research is being done about stuttering?