Stuttering/Stammering linked to autism?

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I used to stammer/stutter quite severely. It started when I was about 7 and stopped about 2 years ago. I'm now more or less completely fluent but I was wondering if there could be a connection between my speech impediment and my autism. I tried to do a therapy course for stuttering when I was 17 but it didn't work at all as it was designed for NTs and didn't work for me. I don't really know why I'm fluent again after 14 years of problems but I'd like to know if my speech problems were related to autism and not simply emotional issues.

Well I don't know if this is related to stuttering specifically but my son and I tend to talk in "scripts". I can vary out of my scripts easily, but he's only 3 so he has a lot of trouble when he has to say something that isn't pre-programmed in. For example, he'll try to say a sentence that he's never said before, and it comes out something like this:

My
My blankie
My blankie
My blankie
My blankie
My blankie got
KETCHUP on it!

Stuttering is not linked to autism, but many individuals with autism have difficulty with fluent speech. However they don't demonstrate stuttering disfluencies (prolongations, blocks, etc.), but rather an increased rate of "normal" disfluencies (word and phrase repetitions, revisions. etc). Hope that helps.

I actually wrote my Master's paper on prosody in HFA and AS, and I included a small section on fluency, if you're interested.

Regarding your question about emotions- there is no evidence that stuttering is caused by emotional problems. In fact, when given the Multiphasic Minnesota Personality Inventory, there were no significant differences between stutterers and non-stutterers on any of the sections. It is possible however for emotionally charged situations to *exacerbate* fluency problems for a stutterer (i.e. you may stutter more when upset or excited).

i suffered/suffer from a disjointed speech pattern. most words i speak are re-hearsed and rote learned.

I have always had trouble speaking. I am always mumbling or murmuring or stuttering. It is like I know what I want to say, but can never get it out in words the way I want it to. I tend to trip over my words and say "um" or "uh" or "like" a lot. My family hates it, and my brothers make fun of me for it.

I stutter now and again (the stereotypical way of getting "stuck" on the first syllable and repeating that several times). It's in no way at a clinical level, as I only do it once a month or so when conversing with my mother (she picks it up as I do).

I have an odd prosody that's always evident, however, which is due to the ASD.