PREV

NEXT

To put it bluntly, stuttering is the inability to speak in a smooth and fluent manner. Some types of disfluencies are repetitions, prolongations, interjections, pauses and revisions.

1. Repetitions

   Repeating of a single phoneme (e-e-eight) or a syllable (ei-ei-ei-eight).

2. Prolongations

   A sound is prolonged in a word (mmmmister); but there is no break in this sound (it is kind of like a humming of the sound).

3. Interjections

   Throwing of meaningless words (well, like) or sounds (uh, um), usually meant to give a pause, so people can collect their thoughts.

4. Pauses

   Long or unnatural placed pause in a sentence or phrase.

5. Revisions

   Changing a word in the middle of a sentence or phrase, probably due to the fact that they are looking forward in their minds and they spot a word or sound they feel they will stutter on.

Also, most people who stutter tend to have better then average intelligence. Which may cause some of these disfluencies to happen more frequently then others. Such as, the revisions because the person can quickly think far enough ahead of were they are actually speaking. For example, I have trouble with the "ayh" sound, the first sound in the word "eight". So, if I planned on saying this sentence, "I do not want to pay $89.99 for a pair of shoes." and I knew that I would stutter on the amount "$89.99", I might try to change the amount to $90. Since, I know I normally don�t stutter on this one.

The next section will be about possible causes.