Simplifying Stuttering – Understanding the Basics

Good morning everyone,

I hope that you’re having a lovely start to the week 🙂

I’ve had a stutter for as long as I can possibly remember, but for those of you who have never had one, or don’t know anybody that has, it can be an unusual topic area to get your head around. We’re going to be delving into the world of speech today, simplifying what we mean by the term stutter.

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Approximately 1 in every 100 people in the world has a stutter, which is over 78 million people, despite this, it’s a subject that generally lacks a lot of awareness in the public, which is something that I’m setting out to change.

I myself talk about stuttering a lot here on Sweeney’s Blogs, however, I only realised lately that I haven’t provided more information on the background of the condition for a while, so this is something that we are going to resolve in today’s blog.

What is a Stutter?

Stuttering is a speech disorder characterised by the repetition or the prolongation of sounds, syllables, or words and interruptions in speech fluency, commonly referred to as blocks. It is a condition that is relatively common in children, but for some people (such as myself), it can continue into adulthood.

There are three main types of stuttering, which I refer to as repetition, elongation and blockage, here is what I mean by each term:

Repetition is when you repeat sounds, syllables or even full words – instead of saying the sentence “Hi, my name is James”, what a stutterer may end up saying is “Hi, my my my name is James”
Elongation is when you make sounds or parts of a word longer – using the above example, a stutterer may say “Hi, mmmy name is Jaames”
Blockage is when a word gets stuck or does not come out at all – continuing with the above example, a stutterer may say “Hi, my name is” and then for whatever reason, they would not be able to get the final word out

Each of these types of stutter impacts the stutterer differently, and for some, they use a different technique/method to help manage and maintain the fluency of their speech. I believe that it’s key that we understand the basics of stuttering, before digging deeper into the subject going forward.

Some of you may have been very aware of the above information, but it never hurts to have a little refresher every now and again. For those of you who are very new to the concept of stutters/stammers, now you know!

I’ll be delving further into stuttering over the next couple of months, but if you are interested in finding out more, here are a couple of blogs that may be of interest to you:

Stuttering in Mainstream Media – I wrote an 11-blog series on the page before exploring what we mean by the term stutter, the impact that it can have on people’s lives and some of the stories of famous people who have lived with the condition
Rhythmical Movements – A Stuttering Solution? – this blog delves into a stuttering solution that I created, which revolves around using regular movements with my hands to control my speech fluency
Sweeney’s Stuttering Story: The Call – Back in September 2020, I went through a a very unfortunate experience, which ended up teaching me so much about how to control and believe in myself
Sweeney’s Stuttering Updates – I run a regular series here on Sweeney’s Blogs, acting as a monthly log of my journey to speech fluency, bringing you along on the ride with me 🙂

That’s all for today’s blog though, what do you think? Would you be interested in seeing more in-depth blogs about stuttering here on the page? What sort of topics would you like to see me explore going forward?

Be sure to let me know your thoughts and answers to the above questions 🙂

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!