There are many, many places where people can go to learn about stuttering! Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of useful resources:

1. Your country’s association for people who stutter. The Canadian Stuttering Association has some valuable resources for people who stutter in Canada. Other countries’ equivalent organizations include the National Stuttering Association in the USA, the British Stammering Association in the UK, the Stuttering Association for the Young in Australia, or the International Stuttering Association worldwide. Of course, you can always look at websites for other countries’ organizations for more information!

2. Books published by scientists, speech-language pathologists, or people who stutter. Interesting books include:

   1. Self-Therapy for the Stutterer, by Malcolm Fraser (a guidebook on how to manage a stutter - by a stutterer!)

   2. Out With It: How Stuttering Helped Me Find My Voice, by Katharine Preston (a memoir)

   3. Stuttering: A Life Bound Up In Words, by Marty Jezer (a memoir)

   4. Stuttering: Inspiring Stories and Professional Wisdom, by Taro Alexander, Joel Korte, and Phil Schneider (a compilation of essays about stuttering by stutterers, disability activists and stuttering treatment professionals)

   5. Who Do You See? The Struggles of a Teenager Who Stutters, by Sean George (informative, normalizing the experiences of teens who stutter)

3. Local support groups. Your community may have a meetup group for people who stutter, or parents of people who stutter. While these groups may not be as useful for finding information about stuttering itself, they will provide a lot of information and guidance from people’s lived experiences of stuttering.

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Word repetitions such as  “Well well I dont think thats true” is not considered a stutter but rather a typical disfluency that most people have who do not sutter.  A part repetition of a word like ‘wwwell’ (sound repetition) or ‘wewell’ (syllable repetition) would be considered a stutter. 

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• https://www.stutteringhelp.org/7-tips-talking-your-child-0

Some tips for parents that can help their children with their stuttering is reducing the pace of how you speak, allowing your child to speak without you interrupting them or rushing them along. It is important for them to feel at ease, and set an example by using slow speech around them to allow them not to feel rushed. It is also important to make sure you give your child attention and really listen to them.  Trying to refrain from asking too many questions at once is also very important, of course you can ask questions, but keep it to one at time instead of bombarding with too many questions at once.  It is important for you and the other members of your family to take turns when talking with your child, this will help avoid your child being interrupted by others.   Building confidence by praising your child such as  “ thank you for helping with the dishes you did such a good job” will help build up their confidence. Often days become busy and parents don't have the time to give their full attention to their child, it is important to also set aside time just for your child.

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The Stuttering Severity Instrument is a standardized assessment used by speech-language pathologists (known as speech-language therapists in some jurisdictions) to evaluate the severity of a person’s stutter. 

The assessment covers the frequency of stuttering in both reading and speech, the duration of moments of stuttering, and the secondary behaviours associated with the stuttering. Each is rated independently of the others on a specified scale, and the total scores are added to achieve an overall severity rating.

The SSI describes clearly the degree to which primary and secondary behaviours of stuttering are present in an individual’s speech. It does not, however, assess how severely an individual is impacted by their stutter. For some, a “moderately-severe” stutter may feel like nothing more than a mild nuisance, or may even be a point of pride. For others, a mild stutter has a profound impact on their daily lives. Additional assessments would be needed to address the impact of a stutter.

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Some synonyms that are used instead of stuttering can be: stammering ( this term is typically used in the UK), some others include stumble, sputtering, babbling, jabbering,  chattering, mumbling, and murmuring.

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There has been some marketing in recent years of a “miracle cure” for stuttering, often coming in the form of a hearing-aid-like device. These devices make use of delayed auditory feedback, playing the sound of a person’s speech back into their ear at a very slight delay (a small fraction of a second). Often, this will make a person’s speech completely fluent. 

However, these devices have three very important downsides:

• They are expensive, and their cost is typically paid out-of-pocket by individuals who stutter.

• They manage, rather than cure, stuttering. When the device is turned off, the individual’s speech will return to normal.

• People may develop a reliance on the device. Behavioural treatments rely on acceptance of stuttering, a set of strategies that can be applied at any time, and increased understanding of stuttering in general. These devices may work, but if at any time they malfunction or break, especially if this was to happen at an important moment, people who stutter may find themselves much less fluent than they would otherwise have been in that situation, because of severe anxiety about entering the situation without the device to rely on.

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There are no federally-approved medications to treat stuttering directly. Some clinical trials have occurred with dopaminergic and serotonergic drugs; often, these trials result in unacceptable side effects), provide only very small differences in fluency, and/or work only for a fraction of study participants.

One medical avenue that some people who stutter avail of is anti-anxiety medication such as Xanax or Zoloft. These medications do not directly act on stuttering, but rather help reduce the individual’s anxious response to interactions in which they might stutter. Even this use of medication is not a cure for stuttering - it simply reduces anxiety, and thereby helps to control a spike in stuttering that may occur as a result of anxiety. People who use anti-anxiety medication may still stutter, even heavily.

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Individuals who stutter may use um often for several reasons. First, as um is a filler word, it is used to buy time when speaking. Individuals who stutter may need to buy time as they are searching for words with sounds that are easier to say. This is called avoidance; if an individual has a difficult time with the sound /p/, then rather than saying parent, they might buy time to replace it with an easier word mother. Another reason why stutterers may use um is because it has become a habit. Possibly due to negative experiences of not getting the sound out as intended, there may be some hesitation with speaking. This hesitation could have fostered a habit of saying um.

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There is some research on the correlation between ADHD and stuttering. Studies show that while the prevalence of ADHD in school-age children in 3-6%, the prevalence of ADHD in children who stutter is 4-26% (https://www.stutteringhelp.org/adhd-and-stuttering). This reveals that ADHD may be more common in children who stutter rather than those who do not. With or without the diagnosis of ADHD, children who have attention and impulsivity issues have shown to respond less sensitively to stuttering treatment. Additionally, brain imaging demonstrates there are functional disturbances in the Broca’s area of the frontal lobe in individuals with ADHD. As this area is responsible for language production, impairment of it may lead to speech issues and poor articulation.

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Stuttering can, at times, include physical behaviours that may resemble the types of tics seen in people with Tourettes or other neurological disorders. These types of behaviours, in people who stutter, are called secondary behaviours, and are often caused indirectly by their stutter. 

Secondary behaviours often initially emerge as deliberate strategies to reduce the frequency or severity of stuttering. For example, a person may find that they are stuck in a moment of stuttering, but it resolves when they try some kind of physical bodily movement (such as leaning forwards, scrunching up their face, or clenching their hands into fists). Then, the next time that they stutter, if it again feels uncomfortable or like they are stuck, they may deliberately apply the same strategy (e.g. clenching fists). If this process repeats enough times, the individual may find that the behaviour becomes a habit, and it occurs without deliberate forethought.. 

These behaviours initially feel as though they help reduce the severity or duration of a moment of stuttering, but typically their helpful effects subside over time. Over time, as stuttering remains uncomfortable despite the development of their first secondary behaviour, some people begin to use new behaviours in addition to the first. These behaviours follow the same trajectory as their initial secondary behaviour. In this way, some people end up with noticeable movements (that may resemble tics in their speed and appearance), which no longer influence their speech but which have become automatic habitual responses to their stuttering. 

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