What is Stuttering? (Part 1)
Oct 20, 2021
Stuttering is a type of fluency disorder. Fluency relates to how smooth you speak, how fast or slow your speech is, if you have pauses in your speech, and how much of a struggle it is to speak. One is said to have a fluency disorder if your speech is bumpy, unusually fast or slow, has frequent pauses, and/or effortful speech.
There are typical disfluencies and atypical disfluencies:
Typical disfluencies:
Most people have had a disfluent speech at some point in their lives. These would be considered typical disfluencies when
- One adds in a sound or word into the sentence (e.g., like, um, uh)
- Repeating whole words (e.g., “Forget forget it”)
- Repeating phrases (e.g., “I am-I am going to the store”)
- Stopping and starting a sentence over in a different way (e.g., I know - I forgot what I was going to do)
- In complete thought (e.g., “The answer is… never mind”)
Atypical disfluencies:
These atypical disfluencies can happen in people who stutter.
- Part-word repetitions (e.g., “F-f-f-forget it”)
- One-syllable word repetitions (e.g., “I-I-I-I want to go”)
- Prolonged sounds (e.g., “Ssssssounds good”)
- Blocks (e.g., “I (pause) need it”)
One may have secondary behaviors along with atypical disfluencies. These are behaviors are performed to try to not stutter:
- Body movements
- Facial grimaces
- Distracting sounds
If your child has language difficulties, they may also need intervention by a speech-language pathologist targeting language understanding and development. Language is a huge part of math learning and development. At Tandy Therapy, SLPs assess language skills as they relate to all areas of developmental need and make recommendations based on demonstrated needs. Call us today if you believe your child could use an evaluation and recommendations tailored to their strengths and areas they struggle with.
References:
American Speech and Hearing Association. Stuttering.
https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/stuttering/
American Speech and Hearing Association. Fluency Disorders
https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/fluency-disorders/
Speech and Language Therapy
Individual therapy is provided in our home-based office setting and is one-on-one with a certified speech-language pathologist. We always invite families and caregivers to be active members of the team and therapy sessions. We specialize in working with children and their families (siblings included!) to address communication challenges in the following areas:
- Articulation Disorders
- Phonological Delays/Disorders
- Childhood Apraxia of Speech​
- Late-Talkers & Developmental Delays
- Receptive Language Disorders
- Expressive Language Disorders
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About the Author
Lauren Purcell is a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP). She graduated from San Jose State University in California with a Bachelor of Arts in Communicative Disorders and Sciences and a Master of Arts in Education/Speech Pathology. She works as an SLP with Tandy Therapy. Tandy Therapy LLC is a multi-disciplinary clinic that offers speech-language, occupational, and physical intervention to pediatric clients at their home office in Post Falls, ID, as well as via telepractice around the country. You may call the team at 208-981-1111 to set up a strengths-based evaluation if you feel that language learning and understanding may be affecting your child’s school work.
