Stuttering: Prevalence, Etiology, and Treatment Using Regulated Breathing

This work investigated the prevalence and etiology of stuttering as well as the efficacy of Regulated Breathing in the treatment of stuttering among youths. Azrin and Nunn developed Regulated Breathing as a therapeutic tool for the treatment of stuttering. The author adopted the simplified Regulated Breathing in this work. This work was meant to validate its utility in the Nigerian context. Overall, 9.78% of the school-going population stuttered, suggesting very high prevalence of stuttering. Family interactions of PWS tend to be more dysfunctional than those of non-stuttering persons, and quantitatively, PWS tended to experience more psychopathology, a finding that supports some existing studies. The simplified Regulated Breathing was very effective in significantly reducing stuttering behavior in experimental group participants, which was also validated by the self-report data of clients, objective measures, as well as ratings of trained judges. Thus, stuttering does not appear to be the hydra-headed monster that no one could tame. Therefore, persons who stutter do not have to suffer unnecessarily.