Childhood Disabilities & Disorders

Fluency/Stuttering

Fluency disorders are speech disorders, which refers to a lack of smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are joined together when speaking. Fluency disorders is a collective term for both cluttering and stuttering.

Stuttering is characterized by repeated or prolonged speech sounds or syllables in an uncontrollable manner, as well as ‘blocks’ (silence in which a child cannot produce a sound, syllable or word for varying lengths of time).

Cluttering, on the other hand, is characterized by speech with rapid speaking rate, erratic rhythm, poor syntax or grammar, frequent false starts and revisions, and words or groups of words unrelated to the sentence.

Fluency disorders are more common in boys than in girls.

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