Dr. Eddie Chang

So you could be a stutterer who stutters at some times, but not others.

And really the main link between stuttering and anxiety is that anxiety can provoke it and make it worse.

That's certainly true, but it's not necessarily caused by anxiety.

It can

essentially trigger it or make it worse, but it's not the cause of it per se.

So the cause of it is still really not clear, but it does have to do with these kind of brain functions that we've been talking about earlier, which is that

In order to produce normal fluent speech, we're not even conscious of what is going on in our mouths, in our larynx.

We're not conscious.

And if we were, we would not be able to speak because it's too complex.

It's too precise.

It's something that we have really developed the abilities to do and we do it naturally.

It's part of our programming and part of what we learn inherently.

It's just through exposure.

So

Stuttering is essentially a breakdown at certain times in that machinery being able to work in a really coordinated way.

You can think about the operations of these areas that are controlling the vocal tract.

Let's say speech is like a symphony.

In order for it to come out normally, you've got to have not just one part, the larynx, but the lips, the jaw.

They can't be doing their own thing.

They have to be...