DOES STRESS AFFECT STUTTERING?
In certain situations, such as talking on the telephone, stuttering might increase, or it might decrease, depending on the anxiety level connected with that activity. Under stress, people’s voices change. They tense their speech-production muscles, increasing their vocal pitch. They try to talk faster. They repeat words or phrases. They add interjections, such as “uh.” These are normal dysfluencies. A study found that under stress, non-stutterers went from 0% to 4% dysfluencies, for the simple task of saying colors. Stutterers went from 1% to 9%. Stuttering reduces stress 10%, as measured by systolic blood pressure. But stuttering causes stress in listeners. Stuttering appears to reduce stress temporarily, but then cause stress, creating a cyclical pattern in which the stutterer stutters on the first syllable of the first word, then says the rest of the word and several more words fluently, then stutters again, then says a few more words fluently, and so on. Stuttering has been correla
