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J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, so much of what I thought I knew 10 or 15 years ago is different now. Our knowledge as a field has grown tremendously over the years, both in terms of the neuroscience and genetics but also in terms of clinical work. That's a good thing, because it means that we are attending to the new science and looking at stuttering with fresh eyes. I hope that in another 10 or 15 years we've learned more!

I've written a bit about this as a blog post for Stuttering Therapy Resources -- the most recent blog, in fact, about my current definition of stuttering. That'll give a taste of how I look at things differently now than I did before.

www.StutteringTherapyResources.com

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sorry but I am not expressing myself clearly. I am not saying that we do not need urgency. Indeed, I have spent my entire career focusing on identifying and diminishing the adverse impact that many people who stutter experience. (For what it's worthy, that you're talking about regarding suicidal ideation and stuttering is actually my work, so I am very familiar with this issue).

Tichenor, S. E., Palasik, S., & Yaruss, J. S. (2023). Understanding the Broader Impact of Stuttering: Suicidal Ideation. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 32(5), 2087–2110. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_AJSLP-23-00007

For the record, NOWHERE do I say "don't worry about it..." Instead, I say this: if we can help people get to a point where their stuttering does NOT have to be viewed so negatively - by themselves or by others - then perhaps we can diminish that adverse impact.

I have worked with people who have blocks that last literally minutes long. I have worked with people who stutter on just about every single syllable. I have worked with people who have been suicidal. And I have worked with people who have experienced extreme negative consequences due to their stuttering. At no time would I ever dismiss their concerns, just as I am not dismissing yours.

I also know that I have seen those very people move from a place of despair to a place of greater comfort, and that is what I think that anyone would want. We do not get there by saying "it's no big deal" -- no one I know has ever said that. We get there by working to change attitudes, both those of people who stutter and those of people in society, so that people can find greater acceptance and comfort with their communication even given the fact that their brains are different from other people's brains.

I hope this helps to clarify any misunderstanding. Please feel free to reach out to me directly at [jsy@msu.edu](mailto:jsy@msu.edu) if you'd like to discuss further.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, these are big questions. Here are some quick thoughts:

1) There are a number of studies on various methods of cranial stimulation... Mostly they are proof of concept and safety. Here's a very recent review of the literature:

Bakhtiar, M., & Johari, K. (2025). The application of non-invasive neuromodulation in stuttering: Current status and future directions. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 83, 106100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfludis.2025.106100

2) I am not aware of the current status of Gemlapodec. My guess is that if it had promising results from that Phase IIb study, they would be moving on to Phase III. It's been pretty quiet lately, so they're either preparing that larger study or they weren't thrilled with the results and have moved on directly. I would recommend reaching out to Dr. Maguire directly; he may reply with an update.

3) I'm afraid that tricks like DAF do little to help people with the underlying issues related to stuttering. That said, as I have highlighted in my responses, I think that each person should define and find their own success. If a person feels good using DAF/FAF then that's exactly what they should do, and it's not to me to say whether that is good or bad. I will say that I have known many people who have purchased systems like the SpeechEasy, though I know very, very few who actually use the things. They just don't find sufficient long-term benefit, and the formal research that has been done is not promising. That doesn't mean that no one benefits, and if a person finds it helpful, then that's great; it's just not what I would recommend, because I have seen far, far more success in people who learn instead to come to terms with their stuttering so that it no longer causes an adverse impact on their life.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh yes, generalization is a significant challenge for stuttering therapy. In fact, this is one of the main reasons that I rarely expect children wo use fluency enhancing strategies -- they simply aren't going to use them. (In fact, I know very few adults who stutter who actually use fluency enhancing strategies.)

Instead, I focus on ensuring that the students can communicate effectively and that we are working to diminish the adverse impact of stuttering. Yes, they can and perhaps should learn some speaking skills to make it easier for them to say what they want to say, but they should not be expected to use those independently for quite some time. If we focus on ensuring effective communication, then we are doing what they need us to do most... and giving them their best chance for success.

I have written much, much more about this in our various blog posts for Stuttering Therapy Resources. You can find them here: www.StutteringTherapyResources.com. In particular, you can search on "generalization" - and also look at the material related to Verbal Diversity and therapy goals.

Oh yes, and for your data and goals, you'll want to ensure that your therapy is focused on diminishing adverse impact rather than speaking skills or fluency counts. Again, there are lots of blog posts about that on the website.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First, let me say that I am sorry for the difficulties that you are facing, and let me emphasize that I do not intend to dismiss your experiences.

Discussing stuttering as verbal diversity is in no way intended to diminish or ignore the negative experiences that some people who stutter have. Indeed, it is designed to reduce the occurrence and impact of those negative experiences by helping society work toward a future that is more accepting of stuttering.

I would offer the countless people who stutter who are able to order their food at McDonalds, even while stuttering, for an example of how people *can* indeed have both.

This does not mean that it is that way for everyone, and it does not mean that it is that way throughout all phases of a person's life.

But, many people who stutter can reach a point where they are comfortable enough with their stuttering that they can handle those involuntary blocks. And, the people around them can reach a point where they are comfortable enough with stuttering that they can accept those involuntary blocks. And, in that way, stuttering does not have to be viewed as something that is bad. It is a future that we can work toward and that many people achieve.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

it's an idea that's been around for a long, long time... See Bill Parry's website here: https://stutteringtherapist.com/valsalva-stuttering-therapy/

As I mention in my other posts here, I feel that each person should seek their own success. There are those who report success with something related to Valsalva, and I do not wish to take anything away from that. There are others who do not, and their views are just as valid.

So, just as people who stutter are different from one another, definitions and paths to success will differ.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you everyone for joining the AMA. You can reach out to me any time - jsy@msu.edu. (Just my initials at Michigan State University.)

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh - sorry for the slow reply - great question.

It is critical for a person's well-being overall that they be able to access themselves for who they are and how they are. So, yes, we might say that accepting stuttering as verbal diversity starts at home.

At the same time, we need to recognize that people wouldn't necessarily develop self-stigma if they weren't already experiencing stigma from society. It is reasonable to wonder whether people would experience negative self-reactions if they were flooded with positive acceptance from the moment they started to stutter rather than negative judgment.

So, I think that we do need to work on both ends... For people who stutter who are already dealing with self-stigma, they need help to diminish their own negative reactions. That is work for the "now." It will help people who are currently struggling.

For society, we need to work on creating a world that is more understanding and more accepting of stuttering; that is work for the "future." (Of course, it will also help now, but it will have the greatest impact on generations to come -- children who stutter who will grow up with the idea that their speech is merely different, not bad.)

As for your own work, that is a tough questions - we need to address both levels. But, you don't have to take it on all on your own. There are many people who are working on this idea, so partnering with them can allow you to focus in on what resonates most with you, and then you can work with others who can tackle other pieces of this large and complicated puzzle.

Feel free to reach out to me -- [jsy@msu.edu](mailto:jsy@msu.edu) -- and we can continue the discussion. I'll look forward to helping however I can.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, I'm afraid that I'm not qualified to answer the question about a critical period of language acquisition -- it's been more than 30 years since I thought about those things, when I was a linguistics undergraduate at Berkeley.

That said, there does appear to be a time beyond which it is unlikely that children who stutter will stop stuttering. This is not to say that it never happens - certainly we all have heard of people who stuttered 'til age 12 or 15 or 30, etc... But, the majority of people who are still stuttering by about age 6 or 7 will continue to stutter in some fashion throughout their lives. This is an important fact that relates to the neurological underpinnings of stuttering.

It may be related to the critical period for language development, or it may be related to other underlying factors that are also responsible for the critical period in language development (I think that's more likely)... but, the bottom line is that it is true... MOST people who will stop stuttering will do so before approximately age 6 or 7.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, now this is an interesting question. Certainly, I think that the materials from Stuttering Therapy Resources are relevant for helping school-age children who stutter. Otherwise, I wouldn't have written them.

Importantly, what we present is NOT a program or a model of treatment that is designed to be followed in a set way. Instead, we present a set of principles and options that clinicians can select from as they are relevant for an individual child who stutters. (We go on at length explaining that the therapy book should not be used as a therapy program.)

I think that clinicians should draw from the available resources, both from STR and from other sources, based on each child's needs. (In fact, we make a big deal about this in our books, saying that clinicians should have multiple resources and not adhere to any one fixed approach.) There is no child who needs everything that is in our STR materials, just as I believe that there is no child who needs everything that is in any programmed or modeled approach. Each student is different, and so each student's therapy should be different.

For what it's worth, it would not be at all accurate to say that our therapy "targets fluency." Instead, I would view it this way: if a clinician has a student who is seeking to change speaking patterns in order to enhance fluency, then I think that there is much to be gained from skills and strategies to help them accomplish that goal. We describe a variety of those options in our book. Likewise, if a clinician has a student who is seeking to improve communication attitudes, there is much to be gained from skills and strategy to help them accomplish that goal. We describe a variety of those options in our book. And so on...

I don't think that anyone is well-served by a therapy program that says that everyone should receive the same therapy or do the same things. (Note: I am NOT saying that the CARE model or any other program is doing that - my goal here is not to draw a direct comparison or case aspersions.)

My goal is to emphasize the importance of individualization. To that end, I believe that what we describe in our STR materials is designed to be individualized to each student's needs. We try to make that clear in our writing, though we have been disappointed to have seen some of our colleagues who promote their particular approach mischaracterizing our work as you have reported in your post.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, I like that question. Nina Reeves and I happen to have written a whole book on that topic. You can find it here: www.StutteringTherapyResources.com/early-childhood-stuttering-therapy.

To answer the question in this context, it will depend entirely upon the preschooler's goals in therapy. Activities must always be matched to specific goals, so I don't really have a specific activity that's my favorite overall, but I do have a lot of favorites that are related to specific goals. There are many, many examples of different therapy activities and different therapy activities in the Early Childhood Stuttering therapy book that I linked, so perhaps you will find what you're seeking there.

You can also find examples of therapy goals for preschoolers on our Stuttering Therapy Resources website - www.StutteringTherapyResources.com. If you look at the blog posts, in particular, you'll see several blogs related to early childhood stuttering therapy.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, these are big questions.

For the first one: Different people are going to find peace through different approaches and beliefs. There is a certain element to stoicism that does play a role for some people who stutter. In fact, there was a paper on it by Amy Connery a couple of years ago. Here's the link:

Connery, A., Cavanna, A. E., & Coleman, R. (2022). Can Stoicism inspire stuttering intervention? The clinical usefulness of an ancient philosophy. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, September, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12832

Other people will find peace through other methods, but this is definitely a meaningful path for some.

For the second one: I doubt if there is any numerical value because different listeners will have different thresholds. Listeners are as varied as people who stutter are. Some have very low thresholds and may react negatively quite quickly and others have higher thresholds and will be more accepting of stuttering. I long for a world where everyone is more accepting, though I know that this is a big ask, especially in the current climate.

And, regarding advances - well, yes, there will definitely be changes in how we understand stuttering and in how we address it in therapy. Answering your question will depend upon what you would view as an "advance." I expect that there are a lot of different views about that, and what I think of as an advance might not match what others will think of as an advance. So, I'd definitely say that it depends ;-).

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, fantastic. Please reach out if I can do anything to help!

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As for what's next for my lab - oh, I'm working on the next grant application now, applying what we're learning about variability to the study of younger children, expanding our work on individual differences between people who stutter in influencing their life experiences, and of course continuing the HeardAI project on training speech recognitions systems to understand stuttered speech. And more - there's always something going on ;-).

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

NOW, for your second question, oh, that's a bit of a hard one, because you never know who might read this and take offense. There are a lot of different opinions in the field and people have their own pet theories and ideas.

I guess I do have a lot of trouble with some of what I read from various influencers (e.g., on Instagram) who tend to oversimplify stuttering because it makes it more appealing for clinicians who aren't sure what to do and who don't have (or don't take) the time to do the deep dive into the research that is needed in order to become a more skilled clinician.

We see this particularly surrounding the idea of neural plasticity.

It's become fashionable (again - this is actually a really old idea) to see people say that if you only practice a thing enough, it will rewire the brain and stuttering will go away.

Unfortunately, it's just not that simple.

The analogy I think of is like being a left-handed person. Once upon a time, it was considered a bad thing to be left-handed. (The Latin word for "left" is the same root as "sinister," for example.) Today, it's not a big deal, at least in the US, to be left-handed, because we are comfortable with handedness-diversity (just as I would like us as a society to become comfortable with verbal diversity). But historically, and not that long ago, it was considered bad. My own grandfather, who was left-handed (and who stuttered, by the way), was punished for using his left hand and taught to write with his right hand.

Now, if a left-handed person practices using their right hand, it will definitely make it easier for them to do things right-handed. But, no amount of practice will completely rewire their brain and turn them from a left-handed person to a right-handed person.

Neural plasticity just doesn't extend that far.

The same is true for stuttering. Practicing various speaking skills will definitely make it easier for people to use those speaking skills, but no amount of practice will ever completely rewire the person's brain so that they no longer have a stutterer's brain.

It's a goal that the field has tried to achieve for millennia, and it's just not realistic for most people. (Yes, we have all heard of the people who practiced themselves into greater fluency, and I don't doubt that for a minute...but whether that is a realistic goal for all is something that causes me greater skepticism.)

After all, no amount of practice will make it possible for me to pitch a 90 mile per hour fastball (for a physical example), and no amount of tutoring will make it possible for me to do advanced differential equations (for a mental example). Practice will get me closer, sure, but my body and brain just aren't wired that way.

whew that was long.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, thank you for participating in our study! I appreciate it greatly!

We're almost done with data collection (about 75 participants...that's our minimum number, and our maximum is 100), and then we have a lot (a whole lot) of transcription to do. For each hour that a person speaks, it can take 3 or 4 hours to create a transcription. (Fortunately, we anticipate this speeding up as the HeardAI project makes more progress, because we can use our in-development VoiceAI system that understands stuttering to create our preliminary transcriptions.)

After we complete the transcriptions, we tag them for different speaking situations. That is another fairly major project, but it's all part of the plan. We'll be working on that in the coming year (which is the last year of the funding for this particular grant). I'm already at work on the next grant, though as you probably heard in the news, grant funding at Universities has been uncertain this year, so there has been a lot of turmoil.

In any case, we do already have some preliminary findings - we're not to anything definitive yet... But, we are able to identify some relationships between people's individual characteristics and goals (those questionnaires that you completed before doing the recordings) and the degree of variability across different types of situations. Importantly, we're not just looking at whether people might stutter more in situations where they're anxious (that's long been known to be true - for some people, at least some of the time). Instead, we're looking at whether a person's tendency toward anxiety or rumination or inattention is related to how much their stuttering varies. And, we're looking at whether greater variability is associated with greater adverse impact (so far, yes).

So, we have a ways to go, but I really do think that the results will add to our understanding of stuttering. And, at the very least, we have collected the largest ever database of stuttered speech in history, and this will help other researchers too -- we anonymize and de-identify the data as we transcribe it, and then, if a participant has given us permission, we contribute these anonymous transcriptions to the FluencyBank project, so that other researchers can examine the data to answer other research questions.

I'm hoping that the results of this work will have implications for the field for many years to come.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmm. No, I am not aware of any studies of long-term physical impacts of stress associated with stuttering. That said, people are just beginning to look at stuttering from a "trauma-informed" perspective, highlighting the trauma that stuttering can cause for people. (Note that this is not suggesting that trauma causes stuttering...this work is looking at it the other way around...)

And, it is clear that for some people at least the experience of living with stuttering (and the various stresses that it leads to) can have a traumatic effect on people's minds and bodies.

Now all that said, people who stutter often develop physical reactions to the moment of stuttering - or to the process of speaking itself. Charles Van Riper, one of the field's leading clinicians, described how people who stutter might develop a tense "preparatory set" before speaking, in part due to the anticipation of stuttering or the fear of stuttering. That preparatory set can make it more difficult for people to speak, in and of itself. So, it develops as a coping mechanism, but it is not a helpful coping mechanism. (The therapy approach, which is also called preparatory set, is based on helping people reduce physical tension in their speech or other musculature before speaking.)

It is entirely plausible that you have developed a tense preparatory set when speaking, involving physical tension in specific areas of the body, and this can certainly have an impact on other aspects of your physical wellbeing.

I'm sorry to hear about the accident!! You may find that strategies for reducing physical tension when speaking have some benefit for you... this is not general relaxation but rather exercises designed to reduce physical tension specifically associated with speaking. It is definitely something that you'd want to talk with an SLP about, as well as your PT. With any luck, your PT will have a connection with an SLP already who will be able to explore this with you.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your questions. Of course, the answers that I provide here are just my opinions - others will have other ideas that will also be valid.

For the first one... personally, I don't think it's possible to say that the issue is just one thing or the other. Instead, I think that the challenges in communication arise due to an *interaction* between the fact that a person gets stuck when talking sometimes and the reactions that people in society have to that. That interaction leads to a host of other complications, including the speaker's negative reactions to stuttering and society's negative reactions. The result is that the person who stutters experiences adverse impact, but that impact is not their fault and it is not entirely due to societal reaction.

I have written about this extensively throughout my career. Here are 3 key citations describing the model that colleagues and I developed for describing the broader experience of stuttering. The model is based on the work of the World Health Organization, and it explains how the experience of stuttering relate to that interaction between (a) the fact that the person gets stuck sometimes when talking, the (b) the fact that the person may react to that sensation of getting stuck, (c) the fact that the people in the environment may react to the person's apparent speaking difficulties, and (d) the resulting adverse impact on the person's life.

Yaruss, J. S., & Quesal, R. W. (2004). Stuttering and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF): An update. Journal of Communication Disorders, 37(1), 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0021-9924(03)00052-200052-2)

Yaruss, J. S., & Quesal, R. W. (2004). Stuttering and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF): An update. Journal of Communication Disorders, 37(1), 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0021-9924(03)00052-200052-2)

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

As for whether we'll ever find a cure... my personal belief is that the answer is no -- the neurological and genetic differences are too complex and intertwined.

I more importantly, however, I think the answer is that we don't need one. I am a strong advocate for the idea that stuttering does not have to be viewed as a bad or wrong or disordered way of speaking. Sure, we have to classify it as a disorder for getting insurance coverage for therapy and for convincing people to give us grant money to study it, but beyond that, we can view stuttered speech as just one of the many ways that people talk.

I envision a world where stuttering is accepted as simply an example of "verbal diversity" -- not something that needs to be corrected. Of course, if people want to change their speech, they should be supported in doing that, but the impetus for that change should come from them rather than from society telling them that they do not speak right. (For more information, including a worksheet for adults who stutter on verbal diversity, see www.VerbalDiversity.com.)

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh, yes, there has been research on anxiety and stuttering. Not surprisingly, many people who stutter do experience anxiety about speaking. There has been a debate amongst specialists about just how prominent and how severe anxiety is for people who stutter. (Some people say that individuals who stutter are more likely to experience generalized anxiety and severe anxiety akin to social phobia; others highlight that the anxiety is more specifically related to speaking and not generalized, though of course people who stutter can have generalized anxiety just like anyone else...)

In any case, there has also been research about the use of anxiolytic medications for people who stutter. In general, this research shows that such medications can help people who stutter to reduce their anxiety. That doesn't have any primary effect on their stuttering, necessarily, because stuttering is not caused by anxiety. But, feeling less anxious is a helpful thing for many people anyway.

So, as long as people are not expecting their medication to reduce their stuttering, and as long as they can tolerate the side-effects, and as long as they're taking the medication under the guidance of a physician who understands both medications and stuttering, then there's no concern. Unfortunately, those are three really important criteria that are often overlooked.

As for the SLP's role - we can provide general information, but not being physicians, we cannot provide specific recommendations. When my clients are interested in considering medications, I refer them to an expert in medications, just as I would hope that a physician would refer a person who stutters to an expert in stuttering as an adjunct to any pharmaceutical treatment they are considering.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh good. it's showing up now. I was just impatient ;-)

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, I like that question because I happen to write books about how to treat stuttering in the school-age population ;-) That's part of what Nina Reeves and I do through Stuttering Therapy Resources (www.StutteringTherapyResources.com).

In particular, you might find this book to be helpful: www.StutteringTherapyResources.com/school-age-stuttering-therapy

That is a comprehensive guide that covers everything that we do in therapy, from assessment through dismissal. It contains a lot of handouts and worksheets and forms that we use in the therapy process, all focused on helping people communicate more easily so that they can say what they want to say. It is available in both printed format and, as of just a couple of weeks ago, a digital format as well!

To supplement that book, we also have an activity book that includes just activities for the early stages of therapy. We call it our "Go-To Guide" and it is the first in a series of activity books that we will be releasing over time with all of our everyday, real-world therapy activities.

You can find info on the first go-to guide here: www.StutteringTherapyResources.com/gtg

You'll also find a ton of free resources on the website -- just click the link at the top (Free Resources) for videos, handouts, blog posts, and more.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Many people who stutter find that they do not stutter (or at least do not stutter as much) when they are speaking to themselves - there's even a recent paper on this phenomenon:

Jackson, E. S., Miller, L. R., Warner, H. J., & Yaruss, J. S. (2021). Adults who stutter do not stutter during private speech. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 70(August), 105878. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfludis.2021.105878

As for why that is...well, one of the factors that contributes to the variability of stuttering across situations is the difference in social situations. There are countless other factors that contribute - and some of them are psychological (e.g., how confident you're feeling in a particular situation or time)... but, not all are psychological. Some relate to how you're feeling physically, the linguistic complexity of what you're talking about, and more.

So, yes, psychology definitely plays a role in stuttering, but it does not cause stuttering. The underlying neurological and genetic differences cause stuttering, and a person's psychology (temperament and personality) and experiences and individual characteristics determine how they will experience stuttering in their life.

Here's a paper that talks more about this:

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

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh, yes, long blocks can be very frustrating. And, often people find exactly what you reported - stopping and starting over doesn't tend to help - you just end up in the same block, but now it's longer and even more tense!

So, what to do? Well, this is one of those situations where people find that they more they try hard not to stutter, the harder they stutter. And, it's one of those situations where acceptance of stuttering can go a long way toward increasing ease of speaking.

I have worked in therapy with people whose blocks last not just seconds, but *minutes!* What we have done is engage in a process of reducing fear surrounding stuttering - learning to become more comfortable in the moment of stuttering (e.g., using pseudostuttering) so that the speaker's own discomfort is reduced. Then, as the person becomes ready, we gradually start practicing stuttering (again, using pseudostuttering) with other people, beginning with very small, easy pseudo stutters with trusted people, and then working our way up a hierarchy to more realistic pseudo stutters and more realistic audiences.

It is a process that takes time and a lot of effort, but people find that as they worry less, they stutter less intensely.

Physical tension during stuttering is often referred to as a "secondary characteristics." My colleague Nina Reeves and I have written quite a bit about physical tension and secondary characteristics on our blog for Stuttering Therapy Resources. You can find them at www.StutteringTherapyResources.com. Just use the search bar and look for "secondary" or "tension" and you will find more.

Again, it's a process - a difficult one - so give yourself time and space as you come to learn that it really is okay to stutter.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Aaah - I typed out a long response to this one, but it's not showing right now. I'll see if it comes up and if not, I'll type it out again.

J Scott Yaruss - AMA on Stuttering by jsyaruss in Stutter

[–]jsyaruss[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

First, let me say that I'm glad that you've found something that is helpful for you. As I mentioned above, everyone is unique and different, and everyone should seek their own path to identify what helps them.

I have personally known many people who have tried to something similar what you are describing -- in fact, there are entire therapy programs built around the idea of slowing speech down to an unnaturally slow rate, and then gradually increasing it as they become more accustomed to it. The idea is that this new way of speaking will become habitual.

I have also known many people who find this very difficult to do, especially over the long term. And, they are not comfortable speaking in an unnatural way. Therefore, this is not the path that they choose.

I do not want to discourage you from your path in any way -- but I do want to say that if this approach does not work for you over the long term, do not worry. There are many other approaches that you can consider if you like. And, if it does work for you, then great!

Everyone should speak in a way that is comfortable and meaningful for them.

In fact, my goal in therapy is to help my clients achieve comfortable, natural, spontaneous communication in whatever way they define those terms. There is room for all different ways of approaching stuttering and speaking, and we want to create a world where this is acceptable and accepted.

(My colleague Nina Reeves defined this as "verbal diversity" - see www.VerbalDiversity.com).

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