What Causes Stuttering?
This is a question we get asked a lot by parents of children who stutter: “What causes stuttering?”.
The truth is that this is never an easy question to answer. We have no definitive answers about what causes stuttering, but let’s lay out a few things we do know.
What is stuttering?
Stuttering is a communication disorder where speech is disrupted or “dysfluent” in some way. It affects about 1% of Canadians and is at least 3 times more common in males than females. Stuttering can look different for lots of different people, but some of the most common things we see are repeated words (e.g. “mom, mom, mom can I have a drink?”), repeated sounds (w-w-w-w-where are my shoes?) or words getting “stuck” (e.g. mmmmmmy name is Tommy).
Some people who stutter may also have other “secondary characteristics” when they are stuttering. They may have extra tension in the muscles they use for speech, they may blink their eyes or struggle with anxiety or fear about speaking.
It’s important to remember that everybody has some disfluencies when they’re talking- it’s common to stumble on words here and there as we plan what we’re going to say next. This is different from a "real" stutter, which can have a significant impact on a person's ability to communicate.
So then what causes stuttering?
This is the million-dollar question. Despite researchers’ efforts to figure out the root cause, we still cannot say what causes stuttering. Most research now suggests that stuttering is a neurological condition that causes an interruption in speech production. That is- the person who stutter’s brain sends a message of what he wants to say and how he wants to say it to the muscles used for speech, but that message gets disrupted somewhere along the way.
You could try to imagine this by picturing that pathway from brain to mouth as a garden hose. For people who don’t stutter, words usually flow freely from the source of the water all the way out the hose effortlessly. For people who stutter, it’s like the hose has kinks that cause the water to get stuck at different points. Sometimes the kinks are worse than others (ie. lots of “bumps”), sometimes they’re in a predictable spot (e.g. stuttering on all words that start with ‘w’) and sometimes it can seem that there are no kinks at all.
The most common type of stuttering is called developmental stuttering. This is the type of stuttering that starts in childhood, usually in the preschool years, though sometimes it can happen later on as well. Around 4-5% of children will have this type of stuttering at some point. For most of these kids, the stutter will go away on its own. For some, though, it can stick around into adulthood if not treated.
Stuttering can in some cases be an inherited trait (ie. it runs in the family) and in others it can be triggered by something environmental (e.g. stress, trauma). Because of the environmental component, an individual’s stutter can often be worse depending on the setting. For example, lots of children stutter more in situations where they’re very excited or tired.
Environmental and situational factors alone are not enough to cause a person to stutter and at no point should a parent ever feel that they have done anything to cause their child’s stutter. Some people are just more predisposed than others and when the right combination of factors comes together, we see stuttering. We just don’t always know what those factors are!
What should I do if my child is stuttering?
Given that it can be very hard to tell whether or not your child’s stutter is something that will go away on its own, an assessment from by a speech-language pathologist is recommended if you start to notice a pattern of stuttering in your child. The best outcomes for reducing or eliminating stuttering altogether happen when intervention is done early, so it’s best to take action as soon as possible.
