October 22 was designated International Stuttering Awareness Day (ISAD) in 1998. The day is intended to raise public awareness of the millions of people – one percent of the world’s population – who have the speech disorder of stuttering, also known as stammering. ISAD includes an online conference, running annually from October 1 to 22 each year, targeted at people with an interest in stuttering as well as speech-language pathologists and their clients.
ISAD 2015 Theme – Spread the Word – Education, Cooperation, Communication
Did You Know?
- Stammering is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the person who stutters is unable to produce sounds.
- The impact of stuttering on a person’s functioning and emotional state can be severe.
- A variety of hypotheses and theories suggests multiple factors contributing to stuttering. Among these is the strong evidence that stuttering has a genetic basis.
- Much evidence from neuroimaging techniques has supported the theory that the right hemisphere of people who stutter interferes with left-hemisphere speech production.
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