Stuttering is an often misunderstood disorder with individuals reacting differently, be it as a person who has the stutter or as a person who is reacting to a person with a stutter. It is quite helpful to understand a few facts that can help you, whether you are someone who stutters or if you would like to know how to react or interact with a person who does stutter.

I am an adult and I stutter. Where do I get help?

Help for stuttering may be available from speech pathologists who work in schools, hospitals, health clinics and private agencies. It’s best if individuals suffering from stuttering are treated by speech pathologists who are experienced in the treatment of stuttering.

Stuttering Foundation specializes in the treatment and prevention of stuttering and other communication challenges.

Can Therapy Do Anything for You Self - Help Can’t?

Self-help has a big plus. One is that even if you’re working alone, the fact that you are trying to help yourself shows your determination to not let stuttering run your life. If you bring that much determination to therapy, then your chances of success are vastly better than if you go to therapy hoping that the clinician will do something to you or for you that will make life easier.

What therapy can do is to help you to help yourself. A clinician can give you enough distance from your problems to get things into focus. No matter how determined you are to improve, it will be unnecessarily frustrating and slow if you don’t know how to go about helping yourself.

Someone I know stutters. How can I help or react appropriately?

There are several things listeners can do to help the person who stutters.

1. First, maintain natural eye contact. Just wait patiently and naturally until the person is finished. You may be tempted to finish sentences or fill in words but it is best not to do so because it can be very frustrating and demeaning for the speaker.
2. Refrain from giving advice such as slow down or take a deep breath. Such advice usually hinders rather than helps. It would be far more helpful if you yourself speak in a slow and relaxed way.
3. Be aware that people who stutter usually have more trouble controlling their speech on the phone. Please be extra patient in this situation.
4. In general, let the person know by your manner and actions that you are listening to what he or she is saying, rather than how he or she is saying it.
5. Being a good listener is the most effective way you can help the person who stutters.

My child stutters. Should I seek professional help?

When parents have concerns about their child’s persistent stuttering, it is highly recommended that they contact a speech-language pathologist who has expertise in stuttering. At Stuttering Foundation, we have certified Speech pathologists with extensive training and experience in the diagnosis and treatment of stuttering disorders.

Differential diagnosis is the key to effective early intervention. It is critical to have your child evaluated by a speech-language pathologist with fluency expertise in order to accurately determine whether your child’s disfluencies are normal or abnormal.

For the child who is showing clearly negative responses to stuttering, possibly with evident secondary behaviors such as pushing or struggling, it may be more appropriate for parents to respond to the speech difficulties in a manner that validates the child’s feelings.

We caution parents to limit how often they acknowledge moments of stuttering and to carefully choose only the most difficult speech situations to address. Teaching parents a more proactive approach empowers them and can cause dramatic changes in the progression of the disorder for many young children.

My student stutters. What should I do?

The most important thing to do when a child is stuttering is be a good communicator yourself.

1. Keep eye contact and give the child enough time to finish speaking.
2. Try not to fill in words or sentences.
3. Let the child know by your manner and actions that you are listening to what she says'not how she says it.
4. Model wait time ' taking two seconds before you answer a child's question ' and insert more pauses into your own speech to help reduce speech pressure.
5. These suggestions will benefit all of the children in your class.
6. Do not make remarks like "slow down," "take a deep breath," "relax," or "think about what you're going to say, then say it." We often say these things to children because slowing down, relaxing, or thinking about what we are going to say helps us when we feel like we're having a problem tripping over our words. Stuttering, though, is a different kind of speaking problem and this kind of advice is simply not helpful to the child who stutters.

How should I handle teasing?

Deal with teasing as you would with any other child who is being teased. Teasing is an experience common to many children, not just those who stutter.

As mentioned earlier, classroom presentations can be a powerful way to reduce teasing if the child who stutters is ready to make such a presentation. At other times, teasing will be stopped only with your intervention.

What types of things can I say to encourage the child who stutters to talk in my class?

The best way to encourage a child who stutters to talk in your class is to let him know through your words and actions that what he says is important, not the way he says it. Other ways you can encourage the child:

1. Praise him for sharing his ideas;
2. Tell him that stuttering does not bother you;
3. Give him opportunities to talk, such as calling on him to give an answer or asking him for his opinion; and,
4. Let him know it's ok to stutter.

You may have other general questions about stuttering, the child who stutters in your class, or what to say to parents of children who stutter. We encourage you to contact a certified speech pathologist. We are also available for help and welcome your questions and clarifications at Stuttering Foundation.

I want to prevent stuttering in my child

Most children between the ages of 2 and 7 years of age experience disruptions in their speech. In most children, this period of non-fluency is normal. However, some children may be exhibiting early warning signs or danger signs of a potential stuttering problem. Timely and appropriate identification of these danger signs is critical to the prevention of a confirmed stuttering problem.

Signs to look out for to identify Stuttering:

1. Multiple part-word repetitions: The child repeats the first sound or syllable of a word, such as t-t-t-table or ta-ta-ta-table.
2. Prolongations: The child stretches out a sound, such as rrrrrrrrabbit.
3. “Schwa” vowel: Use of the weak (schwa in German) vowel. For example, instead of saying baybay- bay-baby, the child substitutes b^b^b^baby.
4. Struggle and tension: The child shows struggle and force in an attempt to say a word. Parents may observe tension around the child’s mouth, eyes or in the child’s body posture.
5. Pitch and loudness rise: As the child repeats and prolongs, the pitch and loudness of the voice increase.
6. Tremors: Uncontrolled quivering of the lips or tongue may occur as the child repeats or prolongs sounds or syllables.
7. Avoidance: The child shows an unusual number of pauses; substitutions of words; interjections of extraneous sounds (um, uh), words (like, well) or phrases; avoidance of talking; or talking in funny voices.
8. Fear: The child recognizes that certain words are likely to be troublesome, and may display an expression of fear when about to say those words.
9. Difficulty in starting or sustaining airflow or voicing for speech: This is heard most often when the child begins sentences or phrases. Breathing may be irregular and speech may come in spurts as the child struggles to keep the voicing continuous.
10. Anytime a child exhibits heightened negativity, negative awareness or struggle and tension during speaking, there is cause for concern.

General Stuttering Facts

1. About one percent of adults and three percent of children stutter.
2. We do not know why people stutter, but apparently it is not a nervous or personality disorder. People who stutter are normal except they lack the ability in varying degrees to get words out fluently. It is known that stuttering runs in families and research shows neurological components are probably involved in the disorder. Stuttering almost always starts between the ages of two and five. Also, boys are fives times more likely than girls to stutter; a gender ratio we see in other developmental disorders.
3. Stuttering is a complex set of behaviors that interfere with normal, fluent speech. People who stutter may repeat syllables or “block” while speaking. There are as many different patterns of stuttering behavior as there are people who stutter.
4. The degree to which people stutter varies widely. Some people who stutter have more natural control over their speech than others do. The degree of stuttering will also vary within the individual. How much control they have will depend on the particular situation in which they find themselves, the difficulty of the words they must say, and how they feel, in general, at that moment. People who stutter universally report having “good days” and “bad days.”
5. Stuttering may look like an easy problem that can be solved with some simple advice, but for adults it is a chronic life-long disorder. People who stutter can achieve more control over their speech, but total fluency is not a realistic goal for most adults.
6. People generally do not stutter when they sing, whisper, speak in chorus, or when they do not hear their own voice. There is no universally accepted explanation for these phenomena.
7. Stuttering affects four times as many males as females.
8. People who stutter are as intelligent and well-adjusted as non-stutterers.
9. Despite decades of research, there are no clear-cut answers to the causes of stuttering, but much has been learned about factors which contribute to its development.
10. As a result, tremendous progress has been made in the prevention of stuttering in young children. Appropriate early intervention can result in a cure for children under 5 years of age.
11. People who stutter are self-conscious about their stuttering and often let the disability determine the vocation they choose.
12. There are no instant miracle cures for stuttering. Therapy is not an overnight process.
13. Some 25% of all children go through a stage of development during which they stutter. Only 5% of these children are at risk to develop persistent stuttering patterns.
14. Stuttering becomes an increasingly formidable problem in the teen years as dating and social interactions begin.
15. Stuttering can be very cyclical in nature, coming and going without apparent cause or reason.
16. A qualified speech-language pathologist with fluency expertise can help not only children, but also teenagers, young adults and even older adults make significant progress toward fluency.
17. Many famous people stuttered: Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Carly Simon, James Earl Jones, Ken Venturi, John Updike, Lewis Carroll, Frank Wolf, Annie Glenn, Bob Love, John Stossel, Bill Walton and King George VI all stuttered and overcame their problem.