stuttering: disfluency
(dysfluency)
Used interchangeable by some clinicians
and differentially by others. Some
feel that the prefix "dys-" should be used where there is reasonable
suspicion of "organicity" to warrant the more medical terminology. The
prefix "dis-" is used to denote mislearning and more psycho-emotional
components. Other clinicians opt for the term "nonfluency." In any
event, the terms refer to speech which is not smooth or fluent. All speakers
talk disfluently at times; i.e., they hesitate or stumble in varying degrees.
All stutterers are disfluent, but not all disfluency is stuttering. For
instance, "disfluency" could describe the
developmental hesitations of
a child learning to talk, or the disrhythmic breaks in the speech of an adult.
Other disfluencies are associated with neuropathology such as the speech
characteristics associated with apraxia,
parkinsonism, multiple sclerosis,
myasthenia gravis and others.*
Books and Other
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Pumpkin
Christina Ricci, Hank Harris, Brenda Blethyn, and Dominique Swain 2002
*Reprinted with permission from Hood, Stephen B. (editor) Stuttering
Words, third edition
Paperback 1997 available from Stuttering Foundation of America
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