What is Stuttering for Psychologists? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

Ever since I was born, I have always had a stutter (or stammer if we’re using UK English). This meant when I was a child, I had horrific difficulties with speech, forming sentences and I really struggled talking in general. Thankfully, as I’ve gotten older and more comfortable in myself and different situations, I have largely removed my stutter, but this week was a painful reminder at how badly I stutter in new situations. In fact, the other week in a job interview because I was stuttering, the interviewer actually asked me point-blank something along the lines of this role will involve talking to over 200 people in a hall, is that something you can do? I had to literally tell them whilst my interview performance wasn’t showing it, I was fine talking to massive groups of people and delivering large presentations when I was at university. I didn’t get the job and I strongly believe it was clearly because of my stutter and how they treated me as if I was stupid because of it. This reflects the sheer number of myths and misconceptions about stuttering. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is stuttering, what causes it and how is stuttering treated. As well as what are the myths and misconceptions about stuttering and how can we support people who stutter. If you enjoy learning about speech difficulties, clinical psychology and mental health, then this will be a great episode for you.

Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Developmental Psychology: A Guide to Developmental and Child Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

What is Stuttering for Psychologists?

According to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, stuttering is when someone repeats sounds or syllables, like “mu-mu-mu-mummy”, as a word gets stuck or doesn’t come out at all and/ or a person makes sounds longer like “mmmmmmummmmy”. As well as the intensity and frequency of stuttering does vary from person to person and it depends on the situation, so someone might have periods of stuttering followed by times when they can speak relatively fluently.

Personally, when I was a child I would tend to get stuck on certain words and sounds, and sometimes they just wouldn’t come out at all. Also, I would definitely prolong my sounds and I would use filters a lot of the time. For example, whilst I tend to edit most of these out in the podcast you have heard me say “though” and “like” a lot. This is normally during my stuttering that I try to edit out of the podcast as best as I can.

Equally, as a child, I used to repeat “yes so then” a lot before I started speaking and I would constantly repeat the syllables “li-li-like” and “well,” before and during my speech, because talking was just so hard because of my stuttering.

Building upon the situational point, even now this is a very annoying part of stuttering because talking with people I know, like my friends, my peers and my family. I am fine, I do not stutter much and my speech is very close to being perfect. Yet if you put me in a situation that is new, that is filled with people I don’t know and I am concerned, then my stuttering increases dramatically. For example, job interviews and canvassing (also known as door-knocking) I tend to stutter an awful lot.

Additionally, studies show that around 1 in 12 children go through a phase of stuttering, around 2 in 3 children with stuttering go on to speak fluently and stuttering affects around 1 in 50 adults with men being 3 to 4 times more likely to stutter compared to women.

On the whole, stuttering is important for psychologists to understand because stuttering can decrease someone’s confidence, their ability to be taken seriously, their self-esteem, their ability to be employed and so much more. This can impact their mental health in turn.

What are the Types of Stuttering?

There are two types of stuttering. Firstly, you have acquired or late-onset stuttering and this is a relatively rare form of stuttering and it happens in older children and adults. This is caused by a stroke, head injury or a progressive neurological condition. As well as it can be caused by certain drugs, psychological or emotional trauma or medicines.

Secondly, you have developmental stuttering and this is the most common type because developmental stuttering develops in early childhood when speech and language skills are developing quickly. I definitely have developmental stuttering because I’ve had this difficulty since childhood.

Overall, it’s important for psychologists to be aware of the two types of stuttering because this allows you to understand the causes, potential treatments and how best to support your client who’s struggling with stuttering.

How Does Stuttering Affect a Person?

Personally, it’s really important to me that we all understand how stuttering can impact a person, because on the surface it just looks like a person who stutters just can’t speak. Yet that isn’t a problem and it isn’t actually true. A person who stutters can be remarkably intelligent, fluent and they can be very confident in certain situations, but we’ll explore that more in the next section of the episode that focuses on myths and misconceptions.

Yet stuttering can impact someone in a wide range of ways.

For example, stuttering can involve using a lot of filler words during speech. Such as “like”, “um” and “ah.” Personally, I use a lot of filler words and “like” is my favourite it seems and sometimes my use of filler words is extremely painful. Sometimes it seems like every other word that I say is a filler word and I actually feel sorry for the people who have to listen to me because it means they have to decode my sentence and get rid of the filler words. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen as often as it used to when I was a kid.

Another typical feature of stuttering includes the prolonging of certain sounds and not being able to move onto the next sound. This is something that you might have heard a few times on The Psychology World Podcast because there are some sounds that I seriously struggle with. For example, the “ex” in experience. That really causes me to stutter for some reason. For other people, this feature of stuttering can look like “mmmmmmmmmmmmmilk”.

Thirdly, stuttering can cause a person to avoid eye contact with other people whilst struggling with sounds and words.

Penultimately, stuttering can cause a person to repeat certain words, sounds and syllables when talking, so instead of saying “apple” a person who stutters might say “a-a-a-a-a-a-apple”. I know I’ve done this a million times and it was horrifically severe when I was a child but no specific examples thankfully spring to mind.

And I will be very open on this episode that this is actually a little difficult for me to write about. It’s probably why I haven’t done a podcast episode on stuttering in the 7 years and over 400 episodes of The Psychology World Podcast. Since my stuttering did result in a lot of bullying in my childhood and even now, my stuttering is causing me to miss out on job opportunities and it’s causing people to think that I’m less intelligent than I am.

And it sucks.

A final feature of stuttering includes lengthy pauses between certain words and sounds and it can seem as though a child is struggling to say the right word, sentence or phrase. Personally, this is really annoying for me because I know what I want to say, I just can’t get the word out and then someone corrects me as though I don’t know what I’m talking about. It just annoys me to no end.

Another way how stuttering impacts a person is that stuttering is more likely to happen when a young child has a lot to say, they’re excited and they’re saying something that’s important to them. As well as stuttering is often worse in situations where a child feels self-conscious about their speech and they’re typically under pressure not to stutter. For example, when reading aloud, speaking on the phone, talking to a person in authority and saying their name in registration at school.

Personally, I completely agree because even now these situations still impact me. I was doing some phone banking for a local cause a few weeks ago and I stuttered a lot during that, because I find it hard to talk on the phone, I had to follow a script and it’s just hard. Since I have a lot to say to these people and it’s important to me. I was tempted to joke to some of the people if I ever saw them in person something along the lines of “hey it’s Connor, we spoke on the phone, and as you can see I can actually talk and string a sentence together in-person,”

Lastly, stuttering can impact a person because there are certain behaviours associated with it. For example a child who stutters might develop involuntary movements like quivering lips, grimaces, eye blinking, tapping their fingers or stamping their feet. Yet they might also change the way they speak to prevent stuttering, so this can include talking very softly or slowly or with an accent, they might avoid social situations because of their fear of stuttering and this can include not asking for items in shops or going to birthday parties, as well as they might avoid saying certain words or sounds that they normally stutter on. Also, a child with a stutter might adopt strategies to hide their stuttering, like claiming to have forgotten what they were trying to say when they’re having trouble getting the words out.

In my experience, quivering lips is a massive pain because sometimes my face and mouth really contort when I stutter. I don’t know why but it’s just my muscles and mouth trying to get the words out. As well as this is a useful reminder about why learning about stuttering is important for psychologists because if you’re seeing a client who stutters and they’re socially isolating themselves by not going to birthday parties, not going to social situations that might cause them to stutter and they feel fear, shame or frustration because of their stutter. Then this will negatively impact their mental health and their self-esteem. This is why psychologists might be immensely useful because we can work with the client to overcome their fear and their social anxiety whilst they hopefully see a speech and language therapist if required.

What are Some Myths about Stuttering?

Before we talk about the causes of stuttering, I want to focus on some myths and misconceptions about stuttering. This ensures that we’re all on the same page, we aren’t accidentally bringing in our biases or myths into our clinical work and it helps to ensure that we’re delivering the best possible care and support to our current or future clients.

Firstly, it is a myth that nervousness or stress causes stuttering. Since a lot of people unfortunately believe that stuttering is caused by fear or anxiety, and research shows that this isn’t true because stuttering is rooted in brain function, not our emotions. Of course, it is true that emotions, like stress and anxiety, can make stuttering more severe, but it isn’t the underlying cause. As well as what I think is the most important fact here is that people, like me, tend to feel anxious because they stutter, not because their anxiety makes them stutter.

This is one of the reasons why my stutter gets worse in job interviews is because I’m anxious that I’ll stutter, look less intelligent and I’ll miss out on the job because of my stutter.

Secondly, it is a myth that people who stutter are less intelligent. This is a myth that drives me utterly insane because as I mentioned in the introduction to this psychology blog post. The other week in a job interview because I was stuttering, the interviewer actually asked me point-blank something along the lines of this role will involve talking to over 200 people in a hall, is that something you can do? I had to literally tell them whilst my interview performance wasn’t showing it, I was fine talking to massive groups of people and delivering large presentations when I was at university. I didn’t get the job and I strongly believe it was clearly because of my stutter and how they treated me as if I was stupid because of it. Therefore, the truth about stuttering is that stuttering reflects speech fluency, not a person’s cognitive ability. This means that people can be highly intelligent, successful and creative in any field and still stutter.

Personally, if we look at myself, I have a BSc in Psychology and Clinical Psychology with a Placement Year, I have an MSc in Clinical Psychology, I write books, I podcast and I do a lot of other things. This means that I am intelligent, I am very creative and I am successful in my life. Yet because I stutter a lot of people think that I’m less intelligent than I am and that annoys me so much.

Thirdly, it is a myth that stuttering is caused by a personality trait, like introversion. As we’ve already learnt stuttering is caused by neurological differences in the brain, it is not caused by personality factors. Since people who stutter can be confident, outspoken and assertive but past negative experiences can influence the person’s likelihood to hesitate.

In my opinion, I am extremely outspoken on certain topics like mental health, politics and psychology, and I am confident, compassionate and I am very driven. And yet I stutter, so I am further evidence of this myth being false.

Moreover, it is a myth that ignoring stuttering will make it go away. Unfortunately, some people believe that avoiding attention or discussion about stuttering will make it go away but this isn’t true. We’ll look at what improves stuttering later in the episode, but creating an open, honest and supportive space with good communication and evidence-based therapy are critical to improving stuttering.

The final myth that we’ll learn about is that simple advice like “slow down” and “take a deep breath” will cure stuttering. This is something I hear constantly and a lot of people tell me to simply slow down. The reason why this advice is unhelpful for people who stutter is because this increases self-consciousness and can make stuttering worse. What actually happens a person with their stuttering is the people around them listening patiently, modelling clear speech and professional therapy that is tailored to the individual.

On the whole, these myths about stuttering are important for psychologists to learn about because these facts provide us with clear insights into how to best support clients, it allows us to be a reflective practitioner and understand how our perceived notions about stuttering might impact our clinical work and most importantly, this knowledge means we can gently and compassionately challenge the client’s own beliefs about their stuttering.

What Causes Stuttering?

Whilst we are not 100% sure what causes stuttering, we do know that inherited and developmental factors play a large role in the development of stuttering, and small differences in how efficiently the speech areas of the brain operate. As well as we know that stuttering isn’t caused by anything that the parents have done.

How Can Speech Development Cause Stuttering?

Firstly, speech development can cause stuttering because speech development is a complex process (I’m sure any psychology student will tell you that) because speech development involves communication between the brain and muscles responsible for speaking and breathing and different areas of the brain. When these complex processes work, this means that the right words are spoken in the right order with the correct emphasis, pauses and rhythm.

However, stuttering can happen if some parts of this developing system aren’t coordinated correctly and this can cause stoppages as well as repetitions. Especially, when a child has a lot they want to say, they’re excited and they feel under pressure.

Personally, I strongly believe this is where the myths of “anxiety causes stuttering” and “slow down” will cure stuttering. Since when I’m under pressure in a job interview, my stuttering gets worse and slowing down isn’t really going to help me because it will not improve the coordination of my brain and speech system. The same goes for my stuttering getting worse when I’m excited and have a lot to say, slowing down will not help me much because it will not cure the neurological difficulties in my brain.

And I’m proud of who I am, my difficulties and my neurological challenges, so I don’t want them to be fixed or cured.

In addition, over the years, as the brain continues to develop, stuttering can be resolved or the brain might compensate for the neurological differences and this is why a lot of children stop stuttering as they get older. Or like me, it improves dramatically.

How do Genes and Sex Differences Cause Stuttering?

When it comes to how genes and sex differences cause stuttering, stuttering is more common in boys than girls but we don’t understand why this happens. As well as we understand that genes play in a role in the development of stuttering because around roughly 2 in 3 people who stutter have a family history of stuttering. This suggests the genes that a child inherits from their parents might make them more likely to develop a stutter.

How is Stuttering Treated?

The type of treatment offered to people who stutter depends on their age and their situation because typically a speech and language therapist will work with the parents, child and educational staff to make a suitable treatment plan for the child. Equally, a speech and language therapist can also work with adults to find ways to improve the fluency of their speech and reduce the impact that stuttering has on their life. Then psychology can be useful because people who stutter can be referred to psychological therapy if they have any emotional difficulties linked to their speech difficulties.

Building upon this, when it comes to speech therapy for younger children, in the United Kingdom, the Lidcombe programme is a widely used direct behavioural therapy for the treatment of stuttering. The programme is based on the principle of providing consistent feedback to your child about their speech in a friendly, supportive and non-judgemental way.

Furthermore, if a child’s stuttering has persisted into school-age then stuttering is significantly harder to treat as I know all too well. As we’ve spoken about already in this episode, if a child continues to stutter by the age they go to school then it can lead to anxiety about speaking, feelings of fear and embarrassment and it can cause other social and emotional difficulties. This is why direct therapy in older children who stutter focuses on improving their speaking behaviour as well as taking into account the social, psychological and emotional aspects of stuttering.

This direct therapy for school-age children focuses on helping to improve fluency, share experiences with others who stutter, improve communication skills, develop positive attitudes and self-confidence, work on feelings associated with stuttering like anxiety and fear and help the child understand more about stuttering.

What is Indirect Therapy in the Treatment of Stuttering?

Indirect therapy is when parents make changes to the way they communicate in the home environment instead of focusing on their child’s talking. Since indirect approaches are based on the idea that children start to stutter when they cannot keep up with the demands on their language skills, and these so-called demands might come from the people around them or from the child’s own enthusiasm as well as determination to communicate.

This is one reason why this is recommended for children who stutter under 5 to try first instead of direct therapy. Since the aim of indirect therapy is to create an environment where a child feels under less pressure when speaking.

To achieve this, parents might speak calmly and slowly to their child, encourage taking turns and listening within the family, not criticising and interrupting their child, making the family environment as calm and relaxing as possible and doing more of what seems to help a child’s fluency. For instance, talking about what the parent and child are doing together, like looking at favourite books, walking to school and playing together.

How to Help a Person who Stutters When Talking to Them?

The reason why I saved this section until last is because this is a very important section for me as a person who stutters. If different people around me knew this information then maybe my stutter could decrease, I wouldn’t be subjected to the awful myth that I am less intelligent because I stutter and I wouldn’t have experienced so much bullying as a child. Therefore, when you’re talking to someone who stutters, it’s important that you don’t, or at least try to avoid, finishing their sentences and you give them enough time to finish what they’re saying without interrupting. Since if you do this, it will have a negative impact on their self-esteem, it will draw attention to their stuttering and it can make it worse.

It just isn’t helpful.

In addition, when talking to someone who stutters show interest in what they’re saying instead of how they’re saying it and maintain eye contact. This will help the person who stutters to feel at ease, like they don’t need to rush to maintain your interest and it’s more helpful. As well as avoid asking them to speak faster or more slowly. Personally, I never find it helpful when someone says this to me because it just makes me more self-conscious and it doesn’t help me in the slightest.

Furthermore, this is important for psychologists to be aware of because we might have a client one day who stutters, and as part of the therapeutic alliance, we need to make sure that the client feels comfortable with us. We’re asking the client to reveal their deepest and darkest thoughts, feelings and emotions so it’s important that we help them to feel comfortable, at ease and they want to open up to us to maximise the likely success of the therapy. These tips about how to talk to someone who stutters can be very helpful in building that early rapport and maintaining it when the therapy gets difficult.

Another reason why this information is useful for psychologists is because if you’re an educational psychologist, then you can share this information with schools, teaching staff and parents of children who stutter. This helps to create a more welcoming, inclusive and supportive educational environment for the child so they can enjoy school and contribute to the learning environment without feeling stressed, fearful or less intelligent because of their stutter. As well as if you’re a clinical psychologist working with the speech and language team because your client stutters, then you might want to share or reinforce this approach with the family system. This means that you and the speech and language team are on the same page, you’re giving consistent advice and this increases the likelihood of the family system taking it on board.

Speaking of which, it’s helpful to speak calmly and slowly when talking to a young child who stutters and you should use short sentences and simple language to reduce the communication demands on the child. Of course, I am flat out not saying you should talk to your child as if they are less intelligent, but you’ll be supporting their language development and reducing their stuttering if you place less demands on their language abilities.

Finally, it’s best if parents (and psychologists working with children) don’t overwhelm their child by talking too quickly, because you need to make sure that you give the child time to understand as well as process what you’ve just said, and work out their own response.

Again, this applies to aspiring and qualified psychologists in a range of ways, but I want to focus on one situation. If you’re a psychologist who just transferred from an adult mental health service to a children and adolescent mental health service then you might be used to talking at your normal speed, using more complex words and you might not realise the extent to which you need to adapt your language for children. This self-awareness about the way you speak, communicate and the speed of your responses are even more important to reflect on when working with children who stutter.

And a final point that I just thought about was if you’re an aspiring educational psychologist, if you have children who stutter in your educational setting then you might want to ask about creating some kind of Continued Professional Development session to educate other staff members about stuttering. You could use the session to combat myths, explain what stuttering is really about and how to best support children who stutter in the educational setting. The advantage of creating this CPD session is that it shows you can apply psychological theories to education, you have experience in delivering CPD content like qualified educational psychologists and you have experience of using psychology to improve schools.

Just a little thought.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

Personally, certain parts of this episode were difficult for me, because my stutter has had a major impact on my life. It led to a lot of painful bullying, a lot of people being nasty to me and even now, at the age of 25, I am missing out on career opportunities because employers think that I can’t speak, I’m less intelligent and I won’t be able to do the job. All because of my stutter that is nowhere near as severe as it used to be and most of the time, I don’t really stutter.

Therefore, whilst we’ve covered a lot of great information like what is stuttering, how it impacts people, what the treatment options are, how this information applies to psychologists and so much more. I want to wrap up this episode with a little reminder. As a result, according to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, stuttering is when someone repeats sounds or syllables, like “mu-mu-mu-mummy”, a word gets stuck or doesn’t come out at all and/ or a person makes sounds longer “mmmmmmummmmy”. As well as the intensity and frequency of stuttering does vary from person to person and it depends on the situation, so someone might have periods of stuttering followed by times when they can speak relatively fluently.

Finally, I would add that now we know this information, it’s our duty as aspiring and qualified psychologists to share this information, incorporate it into our clinical and educational work and use it to make the world a better place for everyone. Including people who stutter.

So, I’ll leave you with a simple question:

·       What small act could you do today to improve the life of someone who stutters?

I hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.

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Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading

Gembäck, C., McAllister, A., Femrell, L., & Lagerberg, T. E. (2025). Online indirect group treatment for preschool children who stutter—Effects on stuttering severity and the impact of stuttering on child and parents. International journal of language & communication disorders, 60(2), e70008.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stammering/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stammering/symptoms/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stammering/treatment/

https://www.stutteringhelp.org/five-myths-about-stuttering

https://www.westutter.org/post/myths-about-stuttering

Johnson, G., Onslow, M., Horton, S., & Kefalianos, E. (2023). Psychosocial features of stuttering for school‐age children: A systematic review. International journal of language & communication disorders, 58(5), 1829-1845.

Kohmäscher, A., Primaßin, A., Heiler, S., Avelar, P. D. C., Franken, M. C., & Heim, S. (2023). Effectiveness of stuttering modification treatment in school-age children who stutter: A randomized clinical trial. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(11), 4191-4205.

Nonis, D., Unicomb, R., & Hewat, S. (2022). Parental perceptions of stuttering in children: A systematic review of the literature. Speech, Language and Hearing, 25(4), 481-491.

Rasoli Jokar, A. H., Salehi, S., & Yaruss, J. S. (2025). Variability of stuttering in young children: Caregivers' perceptions and experiences. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 34(4), 1992-2009.

Walsh, B. M., Grobbel, H., Christ, S. L., Tichenor, S. E., & Gerwin, K. L. (2023). Exploring the relationship between resilience and the adverse impact of stuttering in children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(7), 2278-2295.

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