What is Stuttering?

Stuttering is also known as "fluency disorder". Fluency disorder involves the interruption of the forward flow of speech. This can include sound, part-word, and/or whole-word repetitions, sound prolongations, blocks, and accompanying facial and/or body movements. Stuttering may occur with other speech and language difficulties or it may occur on its own.

Normal Disfluency vs. Stuttering Disfluency

​Normal Disfluency‍​‍

• Phrase repetitions
• Word repetitions
• Interjections (e.g., um, like)
• Hesitations
• Revisions

​Stuttering Disfluency

• Word repetitions
• Part word repetitions
• Prolongations
• Tense hesitations
• Silent blocks

‍Stuttering is NOT...

• A mental health problem
• Caused by nervousness
• A physical health problem
• Related to intelligence
• Related to ethnicity, country of origin, religion, socioeconomic status, income, and parenting styles

‍