The Behavioral Patterns That Keep Stutters Sticky
Difficult moments of stuttering and ensuing negative listener reactions can spur deeply-engrained cycles of escape and avoidance behaviors used to circumvent the distress of stuttering — both in the moment and long-term. While these behaviors can bring momentary relief, they come at a cost: by circumventing stuttering, the speaker rarely gets the experience of openly moving through a moment of stuttering, thus keeping the fear of stuttering alive, making the next moment feel even harder to face.
Momentary Tricks
During a moment of stuttering, the speaker might use escape behaviors to try to get out of the stutter as quickly as possible – things like pushing through the sound with extra physical tension, looking away, closing their eyes, tapping their leg, or abandoning sentences mid-thought.
In anticipation of an impending stutter, the speaker may use acute avoidance behaviors like substituting a word that feels easier to say, talking around a trigger word, stalling by using “uh” or “like” to let the glitch pass, or pretending to forget the word they want to say.
In the short term, momentary tricks can bring relief because they help the speaker circumvent stuttering. But each time the speaker escapes or avoids a moment of stuttering, it sends a message to the brain that stuttering is something to be feared, making the fear stronger over time.
Avoidance can run even deeper; people who stutter may quietly settle for relationships, careers, and identities that feel safer than pursuing what they truly want, because years of shame and self-doubt have narrowed their sense of what they believe they are worthy of.
Long-Term Patterns
Anticipation isn’t confined to a singular moment in running speech. People who stutter can also experience looming anticipation where they think they’ll stutter in future situations.
This can lead to situational avoidance, where the speaker steers clear of entire speaking situations like emailing instead of calling or skipping social events altogether.
They may also engage in role avoidance, performing the role of a fluent speaker instead of showing up authentically as a person who stutters.
Like momentary escape and avoidance, patterns of longer-term avoidance keep the fear of stuttering alive; the situations and roles that were never faced never feel safe. This is why mitigating escape and avoidance behaviors, both in the moment and over time, is at the core of supporting people who stutter in building a life that is no longer organized around fear.
