Stuttering is a disorder that causes interruptions in the normal flow or “fluency” of speech. Breaks that occur in the flow of speech are called “disfluencies.” All speakers are disfluent at times, especially under certain conditions, such as nervousness, stress, fatigue or complexity of language. People who stutter, however, generally have more disfluencies and different kinds of disfluencies than other speakers. They also may have negative feelings about their speech as a result of their difficulties speaking.
Stuttering usually begins in early childhood when speech and language skills are expanding and other developmental learning is taking place. This typically occurs between the ages of two and five, and in many cases, stuttering may vary widely across days and months. In most cases, the stuttering resolves on its own. For those who continue to stutter with consistency, effective treatment may leave them with little or no stuttering. Currently, over three million Americans or 1% of the population stutter. Males are three to four times more likely to stutter than females.
Many famous people have dealt with stuttering in their lives. These include: Kenyon Martin, James Earl Jones, John Stossel, Darren Sproles, Bill Walton, Nicholas Brendon, Alan Rabinowitz, Carly Simon, Bob Love, and Marilyn Monroe.
