Stuttering is a disorder of the flow of speech that can manifest itself in different ways.

It can lead to rapid repetitions of phonemes, syllables or whole words (clonic stuttering). Other characteristics can be elongation of phonemes or blockages (tonic stuttering). There are often vegetative reactions such as sweating or blushing as well as mimic movements. These symptoms often occur particularly in certain situations, e.g. when talking on the phone.

When poluttering, the patient is sometimes very difficult to understand. The reason for this is a rushed way of speaking, a disturbed speech rhythm and the swallowing of individual phonemes, syllables or whole words. At the same time, there may be repetitions of phonemes, syllables or words and the flow of speech comes to a halt. In contrast to stutterers, polutterers can positively influence their speech flow by increasing their attention, but they generally lack sufficient awareness of the disorder to be able to successfully change their speech.

Stuttering and poluttering can also occur together, but it is often difficult to distinguish between them.