Original Cause of Your Stuttering

An excerpt from the book Self-Therapy for the Stutterer by Malcolm Fraser

Many stutterers have mistakenly believed that if only the “cause” could be found, a fast cure would result. Many theories have been advanced to explain the nature and causes of stuttering, but none of them has been proven at this time.

Considerable research is being carried out to investigate possible neurological involvement,^1,2 dominance of one cerebral hemisphere over another, and any factors which may cause a lack of speech muscle coordination resulting in stuttering. Hereditary factors also play a role in some people who stutter.³

Whatever the cause or causes, you need to be concerned about what you are doing now that perpetuates and maintains your difficulty, not about what happened in the past.⁴ There is no reason for you to spend the rest of your life stuttering helplessly. You can gain confidence in your ability to communicate freely. Others have prevailed, and so can you.

1 Recent evidence from brain imaging studies provides a coherent albeit preliminary view that stuttering occurs when a neurophysiologic system...fails. (Watson)

2 Any differences between stuttering and non-stuttering speakers involve not only brain regions involved in motor planning and execution, but also those areas important for processing of sensory feedback. (De Nil)

3 Inheritance clearly plays a role in some cases of stuttering. Ongoing studies of individuals in stuttering families give us important information about the causes of stuttering. (Drayna)

3 Kang, C., Riazuddin, S., Mundorff, J., Krasnewich, D., Friedman, P., Mullikin, J., and Drayna, D. Lysosomal Enzyme Targeting Pathway Mutations and Persistent Stutterng. New England Journal of Medicine Volune 362 pp.677-685 (2010).

4 Many stutterers have mistakenly believed that if only the “cause” could be found, a fast cure would result. (Murray)

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CELEBRITY FOCUS

Bill Withers

While Bill Withers has long been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter, many people probably didn’t realize he stuttered. He passed away on March 30, 2020.

Born in 1938 in Slab Fork, W.V., Withers was the youngest of six children. When his father died when Withers was small, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as domestics.

Lewis Carroll

The recent Disney version of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, garnered a great deal of media hype. Even though the mainstream media has not made mention that Carroll was a person who stuttered, his family history gives credence to the discovery of the genetic link to stuttering. Carroll was born to parents who were first cousins; almost all of their eleven children, three girls and seven boys, struggled with stuttering past childhood.

Darren Sproles

Darren Sproles, a former player for The Philadelphia Eagles, the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers, made history in 2007 when he became the first player in NFL history to return a kickoff and a punt for his first two NFL touchdowns in the same game. In 2021, he was selected to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Winston Churchill

Seeking to "remove Winston Churchill's stutter by second guessing the diagnosis" indicates neither a truthful retelling of history nor an informed opinion about a complex speech disorder, say experts in the field of speech-language pathology.

Recent news reports that quote Dr. John Mather, a Washington physician, as saying that Churchill's stutter "is a lie" brought adamant critical response from specialists in the field of stuttering and fluency disorders.

Kenyon Martin

Kenyon Martin, the basketball sensation who was named to the NBA’s All Star Team in 2004, joins other famous people who stutter in a new brochure. The brochure - which unfolds into a small poster - is available free of charge from The Stuttering Foundation.

The poster is intended to give children and adults who stutter inspiration as they grapple with their speech disorder.