Secondary Behaviors

Secondary behaviors refer to additional behaviors an individual does around moments of stuttering or cluttering. Examples of secondary behaviors can include blinking, breaking eye contact, making noises, facial grimacing, movements in the head, arms, and legs, using filler words like uh or um, and repeating phrases leading up to the moment of stuttering or cluttering.

• Stuttering, Regular Disfluencies, and Tricks/Avoidances 2

• Stuttering and other fluency disorders - A fluency disorder is an interruption in the flow of speaking characterized by atypical rate, rhythm, and disfluencies (e.g., repetitions of sounds, syllables, words, and phrases; sound prolongations; and blocks), which may also be accompanied by excessive tension, speaking avoidance, struggle behaviors, and secondary mannerisms (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], 1993). People with fluency disorders also frequently experience psychological, emotional, social, and functional impacts as a result of their communication disorder (Tichenor & Yaruss, 2019a). Stuttering is the most common fluency disorder.

• Clay will self-identify avoidant behaviors secondary to their stuttering, during natural and structured treatment tasks with 90% accuracy across 3 out of 5 sessions. 1