How Do People Develop a Stutter?

Kings, scientists, and musicians alike have all been known to stutter. It can make speaking in front of crowds even more nerve-wracking, but is anxiety the root cause? Spoiler: probably not.

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[SayHelloHelli]

When I was in high school there was a girl in my grade with a stutter. She really nice and creative. We ended up going to the same college and taking classes together. Whenever she stuttered I just waited silently for her to say what she wanted to say. We got on just fine. If someone stutters, don't interupt. Thats counterproductive. Just let them work through it themselves.

[columbogaming]

Stutter squad here, how's the rest of my brothers and sisters doing? I may stutter, but that doesn't mean I won't try to talk your ear off

[rocstormmc]

My stuttering is because I'm thinking too far ahead of what i'm going to say and start thinking about what to say next before I finish the first thing. I also see this in my typing. I'll start typing another word before I finish the one I'm currently typing. I found myself doing this twice just in this comment.

[ines]

I wish i could talk as fast as you do without stuttering

[SOCOM]

Took speech therapy classes for 9 years, my stutter is mostly under control now as an adult though I can speak for how infuriating it can be to not be able to communicate. Please, if you are dealing with a stutter, DO NOT go "slow down" "take your time" "breath" or other such common statement with the intent to help. It does not help, it just drives the stutterer insane slowly.

[BillyButcher]

I hate it when even the most simple of conversations make me stutter. I could be at the store and the cashier asks how I'm doing today, I can't just give a simple answer without stuttering and everyone waiting in the queue just looks at me as if I'm weird or an idiot as i stand there trying to get one simple word out of my mouth.

[ToastbackWhale]

This question is one I've dedicated my life to answering. If all goes to plan, I'll be entering Grad School next fall for it.

Edit: Wow this is an old comment. Wasn't even aware I had watched this video yet, haha. I have several 2+ year old comments asking my how grad school is going/went. I turned off notification for Youtube comments many many years ago so I apologize that these have gone unanswered.

The answer is that it went decently enough. Graduated with my MA in Speech-Language Pathology in 2021. Planning on starting my PhD in 2025 in Cognitive Neuroscience. My focus these days is on safe methods for cortical language mapping using neurodiagnostic technologies (EEG, MEG, TMS, etc), but stuttering is always in the back of my mind. Not sure what exactly my focus will be in grad school the second time around.

[mgracex]

ive stuttered for as long as i remember and it ruined my confidence massively, now im 17 and i still stutter but i have good days and bad days. the bad days i usually just dont talk at all, people i love like my best friends mock me for it (thinking it wont hurt me) and it takes me back to square one. very annoying 😔

[flyingbanana]

I’ve stuttered all my life. In High school I did some research and did a presentation on stuttering. I wanted for people to be aware of my stuttering and to know how to treat and respect people whom also stutters. It’s good to be open minded and educate people on what you are going through. I closed my presentation with a simple speech. “We don’t ask for your sympathy or to be treated better because we are different but we do ask that you don’t mock or imitate us. It’s something we live with everyday and we don’t need anyone else to remind us what we have to go through day in and day out. Thank you for giving me your patients and times to complete my presentation.”

Through many years of speech therapy. I have greatly improved but the stuttering will always come and go and I have learned to adapt to life with it. I graduated from college and have a great job as an IT.

[horusbay]

Do any of you stutter when feeling angry? I find that happens to me.

[gelerson]

When I was a child, I apparently had a pretty severe stutter, but my parents had it trained away through speech therapy. I'm convinced, however, that I still retain what I call a silent stutter, although I have been trained not to make noise when it happens. Instead of tripping over syllables, I simply go silent, which is actually more embarrassing to me as an adult than if I were obviously tripping over a word. Sometimes I feel as though people assume I'm either less intelligent or less articulate than I am, because they can't tell what's going on in my head.

I'm really proud of how my mother thought on her feet, though, during my treatment. She began reading books to me that were FAR outside my sphere of understanding at the time. The Hobbit, the french version of The Little Prince, The King James Bible, etc. She wanted to build my vocabulary such that I could switch over to a synonym when I got tripped over a word. I may not be able to say EXACTLY what I wanted to say, but I could quickly recover and relay the general idea of whatever my statement/question is.

I think there is a connection between the stutter and the way a patient's thoughts work. It's not just that we/they repeat syllables or whole words. For me, I can understand the idea I wish to convey before I speak. I can follow along and process the conversation without any issues. Seemingly at random, but more often related to words that I don't read, write or speak very often, though, a word in the sentence/statement I'm attempting to make will simply... disappear. I can clearly define it for you. I can describe the concept to you, defined by that word. I can often even tell you the first letter that it begins with. But the word is stuck on the tip of my tongue, where it will stay... and I go silent while both attempting to remember the word and control my frustration that it has happened AGAIN.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts on the matter. Great video, guys!

[DirtMankee]

I'm in high school right now and it's so frustrating to stutter, i can't talk about what i want and to who i want, when i want and how i want. I feel very limited and i often have to use synonyms and feel like i will never get a gf.

[xBADFECE]

Fun fact: Rowan Atkinson, the star of Mr. Bean, used to stutter whenever he came across a "b" sound, and to get around it, he initially put extra effort into pronouncing the "b"s, evident in the distinctive way he says "Bob" in Blackadder II. It completely vanished later in his career but only after speech therapy.

[austrolonium]

My stuttering is built out of my speech pattern getting used to people interrupting me, I only stutter when I’m around people because I’m almost preparing myself subconsciously for that interruption, and interrupting someone to ‘slow down’ or ‘relax’ just makes me elongate my words if you know someone who stutters just let them work their way through the sentence and do not interrupt.

[PixelGamer]

Hey, I just wanted to say tthat this is indeed a quite interesting video! I stutter myself (since fifth grade) and I'd like to maybe give some more information. First, yes I've people in my family who stutter aswell. One example is my father (also in fifth grade my parents divorced and almost immidiently afterwards I started to stutter). My mother then went with me to the doctor and I started therapy. There I learned HOW I stutter, because there are different ways. One way is that things are being repeated, i.e "C-c-c-ould you p-p-p-lease giv-v-ve me the salt?" Another, and probably most awkward, way is the block. Where you just can't get the word out and it is stuck, leaving you with an open mouth and breathing problems since you are exhaling. I had/have both of them, although I'm in really good control of the block the repetition still occurs sometimes, getting worse when I start getting excited or nervous. So now years later (I'm 18 now) I'm, most of the time, in control of it although it sometimes really gets bad when I have to conduct a presentation, but I'm working on that one!

[azraelle]

I had a pretty good stutter until the age of about 12. My mother gave me a suggestion that helped me immensely: when I found myself tripping over the same syllable of a word, just move on to the next syllable. So, for example, if I was trying to say the word "situation, " and I would start saying "sih- sih- sih-" then I just move on to "choo" then "ay" and "shun" until I would complete the word and move on. Eventually this became easier and easier until I no longer stuttered.

[rasheedmiller]

I've been stuttering for all of my life and as you can imagine it gets embarrassing when you're stuck on a word for several seconds in front of the entire class...also my dad stutters

[Swampy]

I'm 19 years old, and I've been stuttering ever since I was a kid. It's been a real pain, since people assume I stutter because I'm nervous about something. I even stutter more with some people than with others, which I find odd. Still, I've learned to sort of "control" my stutter a bit by saying other words first when I feel a stutter coming on (I can sort of tell if I'm gonna stutter beforehand, I don't know if that's normal), so the sentence just ends up a bit longer.

[RevengerReloaded]

Apparently I have the lamest mutant power ever. I've stuttered since I was 5, but it's interesting how it's bad when I speak Spanish (my mother tongue) I do it a lot less when I speak English, and don't even do it at all when I speak French. To all those people that suffer like I do, I've learned to deal with the fact that that's how I talk and might as well get used to it, and it's helped a lot confidence wise. if people don't like how you talk then simply don't be friends with them.

[glittery_cucumber]

It's absolutely fascinating how little is understood about the human body.