thin the family is often the cause.
With respect to a delay in acquiring language and/or articulation, the literature indicates that some children who stutter were ôslow in mastering the fine, co-ordinating muscular movements needed to articulate, or have had difficulty in learning the words to express themselvesö (Byrne, 1989, p. 5). Language skills of any type are best acquired as a part of an on-going process (Caccamise, Newell, Fennell, & Carr, 1988).
Ling (1979, p. 213) held that the ôbroad stages of normal speech development progress from 1) simple vocalization through control over voice patterns, to 2) the emergence of a basic vowel system and the co-articulation of consonants, to 3) mastery of the blending process in running speech.ö Each stage of the process provides ôthe foundations for the acquisition of speech patterns in the next and subsequent stagesö (Ling, 1979, p. 213).
Speech fluency can be acquired ôonly if the neuro-motor skills required for producing speech have been acquiredö (Ling, 1979, p. 2
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