What is it about?
This paper looks at how our attention and executive skills, like staying focused, stopping ourselves from unwanted actions, and holding information in mind, affect the way we speak. It reviews research on people who stutter, people who do not stutter, and people who don’t stutter but have other conditions that influence attention or executive skills. By examining 51 studies, the review explores which mental skills are most closely linked to speech becoming smooth or getting disrupted. It also looks at how speaking changes when people have to do more than one task at the same time.
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Why is it important?
Speech fluency is not only about the movements of articulators, but it is also shaped by how well the brain manages the execution of thoughts. Understanding these connections helps us explain why some people become more disfluent when they are under pressure, while others may actually speak more fluently when their attention is divided. This knowledge might guide better assessment and treatment for people who stutter and for people whose cognitive difficulties affect their speech. It also highlights the need for more real‑world research to understand how everyday thinking demands influence how smoothly we speak.
Perspectives
This project strengthened my knowledge of both the theory and the practical measurement of attention and executive functions. It encouraged me to look beyond surface-level explanations and consider how different cognitive systems interact during speech. Most importantly, it motivated me to approach future research with a more careful and critical mindset, especially when choosing or interpreting tasks meant to represent complex mental processes.
Gizem Aslan
Universiteit Gent
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Attention, Executive Functions, and Speech Disfluencies in Stuttering and Nonstuttering Individuals: A Scoping Review, Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, February 2026, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2025_jslhr-25-00224.
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