Stuttering or stammering refers to a breakdown in the fluency of our speech. This fluency disorder may be due to an underlying disease or other factors that mainly include family history, psychological or emotional or just generally when a child is learning how to speak. Sometimes children will gradually overcome their stutter with age while in some cases it may persist. Stuttering can create havoc on self-esteem, confidence, the ability to socialize and impede us from living our personal and professional lives to the fullest.

A large number of neurological conditions can cause these conditions, in my experience as a speech therapist the most common conditions are Parkinson’s disease, Stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) etc. Dealing with a condition like a stroke or other neurogenic condition is difficult as is, but the effects are exacerbated with the frustration of unintelligible speech, slurred nature of speech, difficulty saying the right sounds, altered speech or voice quality etc.