ABSTRACT
In speech-language pathology, widely used as a synonym for ‘stuttering.’ As such, it denotes a situation-specific speech production disorder in which fluency of speech is disrupted by a lack of motor co-ordination in the muscles involved in articulation, phonation, or respiration. Two symptoms are generally distinguished: (a) tonic dysfluency (stuttering), characterized by interruptions in articulatory movements due to a spasm in the articulatory muscles; and (b) clonic dysfluency (stammering) due to a quick sequence of contractions of the speech muscles that causes repetitions of sounds, syllables, or words. Both symptoms can occur isolated or combined. Stuttering is more common in male than in female speakers. In North America, stuttering and stammering are not sharply distinguished. The term ‘dysfluency’ can also be used more generally to refer to any sort of breakdown in speech fluency, such as cluttering.
