We’ve all heard it said, “Everyone stutters sometimes.” Is that actually true?
The answer is, emphatically, “no.”
Everyone is disfluent sometimes, but that’s not the same as stuttering. Still, the fact that everyone sometimes has disruptions in speech is yet another reason that listeners are often confused by stuttering.
You asked for it – it’s here! This is the second in my blog series about why stuttering can be so confusing to listeners. [Check out Part 1 here]
What is a disfluency?
Disfluencies are commonly defined as disruptions in the forward flow of speech (e.g., Bloodstein et al., 2021). Disfluencies can take many forms, including repetitions of phrases (“like this- like this”), interjections (“uh,” “um,” “like”), revisions (“I want- I need that”), and more.
For most people, most of the time, disfluencies indicate that a speaker needed more time to plan what they want to say or wanted to change something about what they already planned. Disfluencies can also be used for emphasis or to maintain a speaking turn.
Everyone is disfluent. In fact, disfluencies are a common feature of everyday speech.
What is stuttering?
Stuttering has traditionally been defined as the certain types of disfluencies, specifically, repetitions of parts of words (“li-li-like this”), prolongations (“lllllike this”), and blocks (“l----ike this”) [Note that different researchers have used different words for these behaviors, like “dysrhythmic phonation” or “tense pause.”]
Regardless of the specific terms that were used, stuttered disfluencies have been defined as a subset of all of the various types of disfluencies that people can exhibit. Countless articles have been written about the differences between so-called “stuttered” disfluencies and “other” types of disfluencies (see review in Yaruss, 1997).
The consensus of all of this research was this: If a speaker exhibited a part-word repetition, prolongation, or block, they were said to have stuttered. If they exhibited another type of disfluency, such as a revision or interjection, then they were still disfluent, but they did not stutter in that moment.
But that’s not how we look at it today!
Disfluency vs. stuttering
Historically, many researchers (including us, once upon a time) described disfluency and stuttering as being on a continuum, with so-called non-stuttered disfluencies at one end and so-called stuttered disfluencies on the other end, and every other possible type of speech disruption in between.
This apparently simple differentiation between disfluency types introduced significant confusion, however. For example, people who don’t stutter also sometimes produce repetitions, prolongations—and even behaviors that look just like the blocks of people who stutter! How can one tell the difference? Again, countless articles have tried to differentiate just how many occurrences of which type of disfluencies might cause someone to be identified as a person who stutters.
One outcome of this work has been the realization that some people who do not stutter (let’s not call them “fluent” people, because everyone is disfluent; see Tichenor et al., 2022) are actually more disfluent than people who do stutter. And the converse is also true: some people who stutter are actually less disfluent than people who do not stutter (see research reviews in Bloodstein et al., 2021).
Whew! No wonder this is so confusing! And no wonder we now look at stuttering very differently.
Defining stuttering: A new perspective
It turns out that the origin of all of this confusion is the definition of stuttering as an observable speech behavior. Although defining stuttering based on the types of disfluencies has formed the foundation of nearly all stuttering theory and therapy for generations, it may have caused more problems than it solved.
It turns out that when you ask people who stutter how they define stuttering, they give a very different answer than observers (such as speech-language pathologists and researchers). Instead of saying “stuttering is part-word repetitions, prolongations, and blocks” (or something like that), people who stutter say that stuttering feels like a moment when they feel “stuck” when speaking or sense a “loss of control” of their speech mechanism (e.g., Perkins, 1990; Tichenor & Yaruss, 2019).
When people stutter, they know exactly what they want to say, but they are having difficulty saying it in that moment because of the loss of control. This experience feels completely different to people who stutters from what happens when they exhibit other types of disfluencies.
In other words, stuttering and disfluency should be viewed as different from one another, even though they might sound the same on the surface.
We don’t fully understand what the loss of control entails just yet, but it does seem to relate to some of what the field has been learning about the neurological differences between people who stutter and people who don’t stutter (e.g., Neef & Chang, 2024). (And yes, that’s the topic for a different post.)
The bottom line? Even though everyone is disfluent, not everyone stutters.
In fact, only people who stutter stutter.
Stuttering can be confusing, but we can increase our understanding
Over the years, views about stuttering have changed many times (e.g., Bloodstein, 1993). One constant has been the idea that stuttering should be defined based on what observers hear or see. Today, we are moving away from that idea and emphasizing what people who stutter actually sense (Tichenor & Yaruss, 2019).
Recognizing that the sensation of loss of control is unique to people who stutter—and different from the experience of disfluency that all people have sometimes—helps to reduce confusion about who stutters and who does not.
So, next time you find yourself trying to decide of a disfluency was “stuttered or not,” try not to focus on the type of disfluency or the observable behavior, think instead about whether the speaker seemed to be stuck or to have experienced a loss of control when speaking. (If the speaker is old enough, you can also just ask them—they’ll know!)
I’ll have much more to say on that topic in the future.
Looking forward…
So far, I have addressed two aspects of stuttering that can cause confusion for listeners:
- The fact that stuttering varies
- The fact that everyone is disfluent but not everyone stutters
Tune in next time, when I will talk about another factor that can make stuttering confusing:
- The difference between observer-based measures of stuttering and speaker-based measures of stuttering.
The field is changing, and we want to be sure to keep up!
References
Bloodstein, O. (1993). Stuttering: The search for a cause and a cure. Allyn & Bacon.
Bloodstein, O., Bernstein Ratner, N., & Brundage, S. B. (2021). A handbook on stuttering (7th ed.). Plural Publishing.
Neef, N. E., & Chang, S.-E. (2024). Knowns and unknowns about the neurobiology of stuttering. PLOS Biology, 22(2), e3002492. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002492
Perkins, W. H. (1990). What is stuttering? Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 55(3), 370–382. https://doi.org/10.1044/jshd.5503.370
Tichenor, S. E., & Yaruss, J. S. (2019). Stuttering as defined by adults who stutter. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62(12), 4356–4369. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-19-00137
Tichenor, S. E., Constantino, C., & Yaruss, J. S. (2022). A Point of View About Fluency. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 65(2), 645–652. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00342
Yaruss, J. S. (1997). Clinical Measurement of Stuttering Behaviors. Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders, 24(Spring), 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1044/cicsd_24_s_27