ONSET OF STUTTERING AND RECOVERY

In two speech screening surveys undertaken at the University of California, Berkeley, spontaneous recovery had occurred in 80 per cent of those who had ever had a definite problem of stuttering. Comparisons of this group of recovered stutterers with an active group supplemented by stutterers from clinics at UCLA and Colorado produced these results: 1. Recovered stutterers differed in symptoms at onset, showing syllable repetitions rather than complete blockings, but not in time of onset. 2. Familial incidence distinguished stutterers from normal-speaking controls, but not active stutterers from recovered stutterers. 3. Recovery was negatively related both to severity and to receiving public school speech therapy. 4. Active stutterers in university clinic therapy felt it had helped them improve and recommended it for others. No Ss attributed improvement to public school therapy, or recommended it. 5. Active stutterers were more likely to have incorporated stuttering into their self-concepts. 6. Recovered stutterers differed from active stutterers in methods used to cope with the problem. © 1968.