UCF Communication Disorders Clinic - healthprofessions.ucf.edu/cdc...
What are fluency disorders?
Fluency disorders affect the natural flow of speech. The best known fluency disorder is stuttering. It begins during childhood and, in some cases, persists throughout life. The disorder is characterized by disruptions in the production of speech sounds.
Stuttered speech often includes repetitions of parts of words or whole words, as well as prolongations of speech sounds. At times, the flow of speech may become completely stopped or blocked. Some speakers who stutter exhibit excessive physical tension in the speech musculature.
Another type of fluency disorder is cluttering. This is identified by very fast and slurred speech with reduced intelligibility. Other disfluencies might have a neurological psychological origin.