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Is it common for children who stutter to outgrow their stutter, once getting to adulthood? — 2 Comments

  1. Dear Hdelgado (sorry there was not a name attached to your question),

    It is nice to meet you, virtually. Where are you writing from?

    You ask a great questions. Thanks for engaging here with professionals from around the world.

    About 5% of children will develop stuttering in childhood and 80 percent of these children will “spontaneously recover” from stuttering without interventions. So that leaves about 1% of children who stutter past the ages of 6 years old (approximately). Family physicians will call it “outgrow”, which might be semantics at the end of the day. So, yes, it is common for children who have developed stuttering behaviors before the age of 6 to recover.

    Now, are you asking is it common for adults to recover after stuttering since childhood? Yes. The term recovery means so many things to many people. Some people who might physically stutter as adult might consider themselves “recovered” because stuttering does not bother them mentally. That is completely valid. Some adults who stuttered as children learn a comfortable style of communication that they do not physically stutter as much (or might appear within “normal limits of disfluencies”) and they psychologically are not bothered by negative perceptions related to stuttering. That is valid recovery.

    What is important here is what each individual who stutter perceives as their journey of recovery. For some it might be physical only. For some psychological. For some it is both.

    Does that help?
    Be well. Keep asking questions!
    With compassion and kindness,
    Scott

  2. Hello! Thanks so much for asking a question of the professional panel and it looks like Scott has you covered on this one. If you have any more questions at all please do let us know. Take care.
    Thanks,
    Steff