Stuttering
Stuttering and Cluttering are speech fluency disorders. Both are neurological and genetic.
Stuttering is an involuntary behavior that disrupts a person’s ability to speak smoothly, and can involve repeating sounds, prolonging sounds, or blocking speech; and can also have psychological consequences.
Cluttering is a speech disorder characterized by rapid, irregular, and often unintelligible speech.
Preschool
- Children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 7 often go through a period of stuttering.
- Between 70 and 80% of preschool children outgrow it without direct therapy.
- Determining who will or won’t outgrow their stutter is not reliable, but some clues exist.
- Predictors of early stuttering are:
- Male gender
- Family and/or child expresses concern
- Stuttering severity, alone, does not seem to be a predictor.
- Research has shown early stuttering to be extremely responsive to treatment, up to age 6.
- The possibility of stuttering remediation decreases between the ages of 6-11 years.
School Age
- Research shows that many school age children will probably not outgrow their stutter.
- These children can learn to have fulfilling communication interactions whether they stutter or not.
- They cannot eliminate? their stutter, but they can learn to manage it.
- Clinical research for this age group is limited.
- There is not a specific evidence-based treatment for this age group but therapy can be based on the extensive preschool and adult research.
- Therapy goals for this age group should be based on:
- Improving fluency skill
- Supporting behavior and attitude changes
- Improving overall communication skills
TEENS
- Therapy at this age requires special sensitivity to the psychological baggage acquired during years of stuttering.
- Teens might feel angry at their stutter due to lack of perceived improbement or unrealistic concepts of what change is possible.
- They might feel helpless and turn off to stuttering therapy.
- Teens are unlikely to outgrow their stutter, which can be frustrating.
- They often have difficulty accepting that they can learn to manage their stutter and enjoy communicating with others despite their dysfluency.
- There is some research indicating that the Stages of Change philosophy can be helpful.
ADULTS
- After a lifetime of stuttering, each adults has their own physical and emotional pattern. No two cases are alike.
- Individual therapy along with group support is their best way to achieve progress.
- They cannot eliminate their stutter, but they can learn to control it.
- Adults who stutter must learn how to:
- manage their stutter.
- deal with lifetime habits of avoiding social, academic and workplace speaking situations.
- Demonstrate acceptance of their stutter and themselves, and not let it control their life moving forward.
CLUTTERING
- Cluttering is a rare speech disorder.
- It is an under-researched disorder.
- It is a fluency disorder, as is stuttering.
- It’s distinguishing features are:
- Rapid and irregular speech, accompanied by one or more of the following:
- Excessive “normal” disfluencies,
- Excessive collapsing of words, or omission of syllables,
- Abnormal pauses, syllable stress, or speech rhythm.
