Can Stammering Be Cured?

There are different treatments available for stammering, depending on a person’s age and their circumstances. A speech and language therapist (SLT) will work with you, your child, and educational staff to make a suitable treatment plan for your child. Stuttering can have causes that aren’t due to underlying disease. Examples include family history of stuttering or nervousness.

What causes stammering? It is not possible to say for sure why a child starts stammering, but it is not caused by anything the parents have done. Developmental and inherited factors may play a part, along with small differences in how efficiently the speech areas of the brain are working.

Stuttering — also called stammering or childhood-onset fluency disorder — is a speech disorder that involves frequent and significant problems with normal fluency and flow of speech. People who stutter know what they want to say, but have difficulty saying it.

Treatment may not eliminate all stuttering, but it can teach skills that help to: Improve speech fluency. Develop effective communication. Participate fully in school, work and social activities.

Slow down

One of the more effective ways to stop a stutter is to try to speak more slowly. Rushing to complete a thought can cause you to stammer, speed up your speech, or have trouble getting the words out. Taking a few deep breaths and speaking slowly can help.

There is no ‘cure’, no pill or therapy which will make stammering go away. There are therapies and interventions which can help people manage their stammer and learn to speak more easily. This is often not a permanent fix and the struggle will still be there.

Stuttering resulting from other causes

Speech fluency can be disrupted from causes other than developmental stuttering. A stroke, traumatic brain injury, or other brain disorders can cause speech that is slow or has pauses or repeated sounds (neurogenic stuttering).

A number of drugs have been reported to reduce stuttering. (1,2) One of these drugs is alprazolam (Xanax), an antianxiety agent. Included also are citalopram (Celexa), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and clomipramine (Anafranil), another strongly serotonergic drug.

Research shows that stuttering is not a mental health diagnosis, and anxiety is not the root cause of stuttering. Anxiety can, however, make stuttering worse. This can create a vicious feedback loop in which a person fears stuttering, causing them to stutter more.

In people who stutter, the brain regions that are responsible for speech movements are particularly affected.” Two of these areas are the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), which processes the planning of speech movements, and the left motor cortex, which controls the actual speech movements.

There is no instant cure for stuttering. However, certain situations — such as stress, fatigue, or pressure — can make stuttering worse. By managing these situations, as far as possible, people may be able to improve their flow of speech. Speaking slowly and deliberately can reduce stress and the symptoms of a stutter.

Here’s what you do: Say a sentence out loud – or read a sentence. Keep repeating the sentence slower every time – until it’s very very slow. Now say or read the sentence naturally. You will probably notice that your natural pace has slowed down!

Featured Photo from Planet Ayurveda