Stuttering 101
Stuttering Education + Empowerment. Let’s get educated and start at square one: what is stuttering?
Welcome to Stutterology! My hope is that you feel educated and empowered.
The best and worst part about the internet is how much information exists now. Maybe you're a parent and googled "What is stuttering?" after you noticed your child began to stutter. But then: INFORMATION OVERLOAD! Where do we start?
The 3 Types of Stuttering
Stuttering is usually categorized by 3 characteristics. People may have 1, 2, or all 3 show up, and it can change over time.
1) Repetition. This is the most common type of stuttering. It's the Porky the Pig kind, th-th-th-th-that's all, folks! You can think about it like a rock skipping on a lake. Repetition is most commonly at the start of a word, but it doesn't have to be.
2) Block. It's what it sounds like. It looks like a pause. The word is sitting in your throat, you know it, it’s ready, but it’s just… blocked.
3) Prolongation. The word streeeetched out.
Now, those are the mechanics of what makes a stutter a stutter. But what if I told you that stuttering was actually so much more than that? At least, it is to those who stutter themselves. I’ll explain this more in future posts.
Developmental or Persistent Stuttering?
You may hear people throwing around terms like "developmental" or "persistent" to describe stuttering. There is a movement to get away from the word "persistent" - but since it's still wildly used, I'll describe it here.
Developmental "Only": As a child learns to speak, they may stumble or "stutter" over their words. This is typically from age 2-5, though it can begin as early as when the child begins to speak. According to the National Institute of Health, between 5-10% children will stutter at some point. That's a very wide percent - my guess is that they are trying to factor in how much of this may go unreported. Most organizations quote the number closer to 6%.
Persistent: Once stuttering lasts 6 months or more, it would generally be considered "persistent" stuttering. Research shows that around 20-25% of the time a child stutters, it will continue into this category. Persistent stuttering is very likely to continue for the remainder of someone's life. Current data indicates that around 1% of the population has a stutter.
Cause and Cure
I’ll dive more into this later, but no real answer for either. The cause is unknown - it’s not psychological. It is not trauma-caused. It seems to be most likely a mix of genetics and brain chemistry/neurodivergence issue.
There’s no cure. Most websites follow this up with “but there is treatment” but I’m going to instead say: “and it’s going to be okay.”
No one should ever be trying to sell you a cure. And most importantly, hiding a stutter is not a cure.
Terms and Lingo
SLP/SLT is a speech-language pathologist/therapist. This profession, in America, requires a graduate-level education and credentials from ASHA. (And yet: many SLPs/SLTs have no idea how to best treat stuttering.)
PWS is person who stutters (person-first language for stutterers seems to be more wildly used and accepted, though some may prefer stutterer.)
Secondaries: a behavior associated with stuttering, but not a ‘core’ stuttering feature. (Examples include, but are not limited to, leg tapping, shutting eyes, looking away. They have a variety of roots, but typically are either an effort to ‘push’ through a stutter or a self-soothing ‘stim’.
Covert Stuttering: This is the act of hiding a stutter to the listener. Some people are entirely covert PWS, and no one in their life is aware that they stutter. (Here is where you ask - wait, didn’t you define stuttering as prolongation, repetition, and blocking? So isn’t covert stuttering just- not stuttering? And this is where that… it’s time to redefine stuttering comes into place.)