Introduction

Stuttering is also known as childhood-onset fluency disorder or stammering. It is kind of a speech disorder which entails significant problems of fluency with the flow of speech. Stammering individuals usually know what they want to say despite their complications in saying it. The disorder is more rampant among kids as they learn to speak since their language and speech abilities have not yet been enhanced. The disorder’s symptoms include; prolonging of a sentence, phrase or word.

• An individual might have silence in certain words and syllables.
• A word or sound within it might be prolonged.
• Having anxiety when talking
• Having Word, syllable and sound repetition.
• An individual Inserting extra words when faced with difficulties when moving to the next words such as “um”.
• When having effective communication, an individual may have limited ability.

The stuttering disorder may be accompanied by simultaneous actions such as head jerks, tremor of jaw or lips, rapid eye blinks, facial tics and clenching of fists. This paper tries to explain the causes and effects of the stuttering disorder.

Causes of Stuttering Disorder

Various factors cause stuttering. However, the factors are broadly classified into neurological, environmental and biological factors. Environmental factors are the situations around an individual.  Biological factors are genetically related while neurological factors involve interference with brain frequency.

Among the cause is Genetics.  Genetics involves stuttering speech disorder running within the family’s gene history. Stuttering abnormality can be inherited from a mother or father to the child. According to scientists, a genetic factor is the most common cause of speech disorder.

Another cause for the stuttering disorder is abnormalities in speech motor control. Various factors cause abnormalities in motor control. These factors include motor and sensory coordination and motor control. Failure to coordinate these two factors creates anxiety appropriately among speech deliverer thus prompting stuttering speech disorder.

Age is another factor leading to stuttering speech disorder. Young kids usually have underdeveloped speech and language abilities. Consequently, they result in stammering as they continue perfecting the art of speaking. However, stuttering in childhood may be permanent or lapse with language and speech perfection.  If the stuttering disorder is genetic, there are minimal chances of the kid recovering from the disorder regardless of their age. On the other hand, children without stuttering genetic disorder usually recover from the disorder as their age advances and the more they muster the art of speech and language. However, according to researchers, only 76% of all the young children recover fully from the speech disorder as they lack genetic interlinking with stuttering (Alm 20).

Another factor causing stuttering is the environmental atmosphere and situations (Alm 20). There are various environmental factors that may trigger stuttering disorder including stress, state of anxiousness, tiredness and after a heavy exercise. Anxiety or nervousness is caused by fear thus limiting an individual from full concentration hence leading to poor pronunciations and prolonging of words. Stress as well creates nervousness in the mind thus triggering stuttering. After a heavy exercise such as running or playing football, the body becomes so exhausted to concentrate on any meaningful phrase and instead results in the stammering, incorrect pronunciation of words and prolonging. However, the environmental atmosphere and situations causing stuttering disorder are not permanent. Also, temperament affects an individual’s speech. An angry individual may stammer or pronounce words fast (Toyomura, Akira, Fujii & Kuriki 459).

Cultural background is another factor that causes the stuttering disorder. For instances, mother languages highly influence an individual’s word pronunciation significantly. Many people will usually develop pronunciations complications depending on their mother tongue (Toyomura, Akira, Fujii & Kuriki 459).

Effects of Stuttering Disorder

The stuttering disorder affects an individual’s language and speech. This results in poor communication between the communicating parties. Also, the affected results in both environmental and social interaction changes. Due to their influent nature in speech, they result in avoiding certain conversations and places in fear of being embarrassed when they stutter. The disorder lowers an individual’s self-esteem (Alm 20).

Conclusion

Stuttering is a serious mental disorder which causes a lot of detrimental effects in an affected individual. There are methods which have been designed to help control the disorder. For instance, Winston Churchill was among the people with the stuttering disorder and used to write and rehearse his speech several times prior to the real presentation.

Work Cited

Alm, Per A. “Stuttering in relation to anxiety, temperament, and personality: Review and analysis with a focus on causality.” Journal of Fluency Disorders 40 (2014): 5-21.

Toyomura, Akira, Tetsunoshin Fujii, and Shinya Kuriki. “Effect of an 8-week practice of externally triggered speech on basal ganglia activity of stuttering and fluent speakers.” Neuroimage 109 (2015): 458-468.