ABSTRACT
This chapter explores features of stuttering that causal theories of stuttering should ideally explain. One approach to operationalizing stuttering has been to look at groups of children judged to be stuttering and groups of children judged not to be stuttering, and to identify the types of speech disruptions that predominate in the speech of the first group as compared to the second. It can be difficult to pinpoint the time and the nature of the onset of stuttering. Parents are usually the first to notice when stuttering is thought to have begun in their children. One of the significant difficulties in theorizing about natural recovery is the possibility that it does not actually happen. Evidence for a genetically inherited predisposition to stutter has mounted over the last 30 years or so. An outstanding feature of stuttering is its natural variability. Stuttering in young children tends to vary over time, and may even disappear for weeks or months and then reappear.
