Men's Health

Stuttering Starts Even Before Speaking

Toddlers Also Have Planning Delays continued...

"For example, they heard the sentence 'the man is throwing a stick' just before they are shown a picture in which a girl is petting the cat. The words are different, but in both sentences, there is a noun, verb, and direct object," he says.

While both studies explore a new area of research -- what occurs in planning speech that could affect how it's delivered -- their findings may offer some immediate benefit to many of the one in 20 Americans who stutters, says Jane Fraser of the Stuttering Foundation of America.

"We've long known that people who stutter can 'cure' themselves by finding a rate of speech that's right for them," she tells WebMD. "If you slow it all down, and use more pauses, there's a little more time inserted for the planning stage of speech."