Sudden Onset of Stuttering

Abstract

This report describes a 28-year-old male who suddenly began to stutter after an attempted suicide. The patient had a history of one prior stuttering episode lasting approximately one week, also following a suicide attempt. The speech evaluation documented that the patient stuttered on automatic overlearned social responses, during choral reading, during singing, while under the influence of white noise, and during an initial trial of delayed auditory feedback (DAF). In addition, the patient produced stuttering-like repetitions while merely miming speech. He did not demonstrate secondary stuttering symptoms and his nonfluencies were almost exclusively repetitions of initial or stressed syllables. An intervention program using DAF was initiated and in approximately one month the frequency of stuttering had markedly decreased. The behaviors exhibited by this patient are considered to characterize stuttering of sudden onset in adults due to significant psychological distress.