Introduction

Stuttering (Stammering) is a speech fluency disorder in which the normal flow of speech is frequently disrupted by the repetitions, pauses and prolongations that differ both in frequency and severity from normally fluent individuals.The emotional state of the individual that stutters in response to the stuttering often constitutes the most difficult aspect of the disorder.,

In other words the person knows what he or she wants to say, but has to strain to say it. People with significant speech difficulty often don’t stutter when singing, talking to animals,reading to small children or when they are alone talking to themselves. (VANRIPER 1982).

Speech fluency consists of three variables:

Continuity : Refers to speech that flows without hesitation or stoppage
Rate: The speed in which the words are spoken. English-speaking adults, the mean overall speaking rate is 170 words per minute (w/m), substantially quicker than the approximately 120 w/m that stutterers produce.
Ease of speaking : Amount of effort being expended to produce speech. Fluent speakers put very little muscular or physical effort into the act of speaking, while stutterers exert a relatively large amount of muscular effort to produce the same speech.

Characteristic of stuttering

l Repetitions of sound, syllable, phrase & word (Beginning of word)

Examples of repetition for a phrase would be

"I want.. I want.. to go.. I want to go to the store,"

"I want to go to the - I want to go to the store."

A word repetition would often resemble,

"I want to-to-to go to the store,"

Syllable or sound repetition being,

"I wa-wa-want to go to the store," or, "I w-w-want to g-go to the store."

l Sound prolongations.

             Example : “Aaaaaaask her if I can come."
                               "Pu-------put it back!"
                               "Is that y------yours?"
                               "Mmmm-me too."

l Interjections.

Examples : Ahh!,Ah!

l Broken words.

l Blocking that is audible or silent.

l Circumlocutions (substitutions to avoid words hard to pronounce).

l Words spoken with excessive physical tension.

l Physical concomitants

Distracting sounds:Noisy breathing,whistling,clicking sound, blowing..

Facial grimaces : lip pressing, jaw jerking, jaw muscle tense

Head movement : Back , forward, poor eye contact

Movement of the extremities : face movement,swinging, leg ,torso movement

How to diagnose?

Diagnosing stuttering requires the skill of qualified Speech language pathologist (SLP) because Identifying a person with stuttering is determined by the type of disfluencies he or she have.

During an evaluation, a SLP will use different tests to identify the number and types of disfluencies a person produce in different situations

For young children it’s very important to consult a SLP to diagnose stuttering, an inappropriate diagnosis may leads to have a stuttering which is not actually present. So it is always recommended to have a SLP consulation before diagnose by your own as a parent .

Treatment

Treatment is based on the symptoms that the patient exhibits. A SLP teach people who stutter to control/monitor the rate at which they speak, so a person with stuttering can use techniques such as

· Reduced the rate of speech (speak in slow manner)

· Relaxation techniques (Breathing exercises )

· Delay auditory feed back

NOTE: For stuttering there is no medicine or pills. It’s mainly a behavioral change that needs to be done by the speech language pathologist