SFA RESEARCH SPRING 2026
by Ehud Yairi, Ph.D. Univeristy of Illinois
The Age Factor in Stuttering Exploring Risk Factors and Implications of Age
Age is among the strongest risk factors for stuttering with several important implications. Although the disorder begins within a wide age-range, current robust evidence indicates that, for a very large proportion of cases, it erupts during the preschool period. Data obtained at the University of Illinois Stuttering Research Program revealed that for 65% of the child participants, stuttering onset occurred prior to age 3; the figure rose to 85% by 3 1/2 years of age (Yairi & Ambrose, 2005). Leaving room for some sampling errors, children past age 4 face a relatively low risk for stuttering. From clinical considerations, these statistics call for greater emphasis on preparing clinicians for working with early childhood stuttering.
Age brings out other factors. The fact that the critical age for stuttering onset parallels the age span when significant rapid developments occur in the anatomy of the speech system, as well as in complex language and articulatory skills, invites speculations that interferences in these maturational processes contribute to stuttering; hence the possibility of relations among stuttering, language, and articulation. Although our own data (Watkins, Yairi, & Ambrose, 1999), and those of our colleagues from Germany (Rommel et. al., 1999), show that the language skills of children who stutter, as a group, meet or exceed norms, we suspect that there are differences in the ways in which they process language. One research
2
priority about
consequent to information age at onset is experimental
manipulation of similarities and/or differences in language processing and production between children who stutter near the onset of the disorder and normally fluent children, particularly in terms of the nature of linguistic knowledge and the time course of knowledge activation. Varied responses to semantic and phonological distracters, slower reaction time, and/or alternative activation paths may reveal differences in language processing. One of the intriguing questions is: does age at stuttering onset — prior to, or after, a certain point in language development — underlie distinct subtypes of the disorder? Unfortunately, only a few scientists have been interested in the subtypes issue, e.g., Seery, et al. (2007) and SheikhBahaei, et al. (2023).
Brain imaging studies of young children should also continue to enhance understanding of the age factor. Years ago, our team members, Chang, Erickson, and Ambrose (2005) successfully obtained high resolution structural MRI data from stuttering and control children ages 8-13. Their initial results indicated significant group differences in white and grey matter volume in brain areas involved in integrating sensory and motor aspects of
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
