Secondary Stuttering Behaviors: What They Are, Examples and How to Reduce Them

Most people picture stuttering as repeated sounds or long pauses. Those are only the part a listener hears. Around them sits a second layer of secondary stuttering behaviors, the habits that grow up around the stutter. For a lot of people, these habits cause more exhaustion and embarrassment than the stutter itself.

If you’ve ever blinked hard to push a word out, swapped “coffee” for “drink” at the last second, or quietly let a phone call go to voicemail, you already know how this feels. Nobody taught you to do any of it. Your brain picked it up on its own, trying to protect you.

Here’s the good news: these habits are learned, which means they can be unlearned. If you want to overcome stuttering at its root, rather than just managing what shows on the surface, understanding these behaviors is a great place to begin.

And if you’d like structured help along the way, online stuttering therapy can walk you through it from home, at your own pace.

What are secondary behaviors in stuttering?

Secondary behaviors in stuttering are the things you do in reaction to a stutter, such as blinking hard, tensing your jaw, swapping a word, or avoiding a phone call. They’re also called concomitant behaviors, and they grow out of your brain’s attempt to escape or hide a stuttering moment.

They’re different from the stutter itself. A repetition, prolongation or block is what happens in your speech. A secondary behavior is what happens around it: in your face, your body, your word choices and your daily decisions.

Core behaviors vs. stuttering secondary behaviors

Core behaviors are the moments of disfluency themselves: repeating a sound (“b-b-b-ball”), stretching one (“sssssun”), or getting stuck in a silent block where nothing comes out. If blocks are the part you struggle with most, our guide to stuttering blocks breaks down what’s happening in those moments.

Stuttering secondary behaviors are everything that shows up around those moments. The easiest way to sort them is by what they’re trying to do.

Escape behaviors in stuttering

Escape behaviors happen while you’re stuck. You’re in the middle of a block, it feels awful, and your body hunts for a way out. So you blink, jerk your head, tap your foot or force air out. Sometimes it works for a second, which is exactly why the habit sticks.

Avoidance behaviors in stuttering

Avoidance behaviors happen before the stutter even shows up. You see a hard word coming and dodge it. You skip your introduction. You let someone else order for the table. You say “I don’t know” when you actually do.

Overt vs. covert behaviors

Overt behaviors are the ones other people can see or hear, like facial tension or starter words. Covert behaviors are hidden: scanning ahead for tricky sounds, rehearsing sentences in your head, picking safer words. Many people who “barely stutter” on the outside are doing a huge amount of covert work on the inside, which is a big reason it’s so tiring.

Examples of secondary stuttering behaviors

Secondary stuttering behaviors look different from person to person, and most people have a mix. These are the examples speech-language pathologists see most often.

Physical behaviors people can see

• Hard blinking or squeezing the eyes shut

• Head jerks, nods, or looking away mid-word

• A clenched jaw, tight lips, or a tense neck

• Tapping a foot or hand to “push” a word out

• Gasping or forcing air before speaking

Speech habits people can hear

• Starter words like “um,” “so,” or “well” used to get a running start

• Sudden changes in pitch, volume or speed

• Extra words or filler phrases to buy time

Hidden behaviors people can’t see

• Swapping a hard word for an easier one

• Scanning ahead for sounds you might get stuck on

• Skipping calls, introductions or ordering out loud

• Pretending not to know an answer

• Staying quiet in meetings and classes

Here’s how it plays out. You’re in line at a coffee shop and your name starts with a sound you struggle on. You rehearse it twice in your head, decide to say “Sam” instead, and nod at the barista with a tight jaw. Nobody heard a stutter. But you just used three secondary behaviors, and your body still paid for every one of them.

Count how many you recognized. Even two or three is worth paying attention to, because each one is your brain working overtime to protect you.

Not sure which ones are yours? A free stuttering consultation is a relaxed way to talk through your own mix with someone who understands how these habits form. No pressure, no judgment.

Why secondary behaviors of stuttering develop

Most secondary behaviors of stuttering start as accidents. Think back to the first few times you got stuck on a word. It probably felt strange, maybe scary, maybe embarrassing. Your brain noticed, and brains are very good at one thing: finding whatever seems to help and repeating it.

Say you blinked hard and the word happened to come out. Your brain files that away: blinking works. Next time it fires the same move, a little faster, a little more automatically. Do that a few hundred times and it no longer feels like a choice.

Avoidance works the same way, only more quietly. Every time you dodge a hard word you get a rush of relief, and that relief teaches your brain that avoiding was the right call. Meanwhile the fear never gets tested, because you never find out what would have happened if you’d just said the word.

What’s going on in the brain

Speaking looks effortless, but it’s one of the most complicated things your brain does. Planning, timing, muscle control and emotion all have to line up in a split second. When one part is disrupted, the system can stall.

Add fear and things get harder. The brain’s alarm system can treat a hard word like a threat. Muscles tighten, breathing changes, and the block gets stronger. Then an escape behavior kicks in to deal with it.

That’s the loop most people live in: anticipation, tension, block, behavior, brief relief, and then more fear next time. Each lap reinforces the habit, which is why these behaviors feel so stubborn even for people who are doing everything “right.” And it’s why “just relax” and “slow down” rarely work. You can’t relax on command when your nervous system reads the situation as risky.

How to reduce secondary behaviors in stuttering

Here are six steps to reduce secondary behaviors in stuttering:

1. Notice without judging. For a week, just observe. When do you blink, tense or swap words? No fixing yet. Judging yourself only adds more fear.

2. Map your avoidance. Write down the words, people and situations you steer around. The list is usually longer than you’d expect, and it becomes your roadmap.

3. Speak more, not less. Every time you say the hard word or make the call, your brain gets fresh evidence that speaking is survivable. Small exposures count.

4. Loosen your body first. Check your jaw, shoulders and breath before a hard speaking moment. Less physical tension leaves less room for struggle.

5. Use a smoother exit. If you catch yourself mid-block, a deliberate tool like a pull-out gives you something to do instead of falling back on escape behaviors like blinking, jerking or forcing. If you’re curious how that differs from changing your speech pattern altogether, our comparison of fluency shaping vs stuttering modification explains both approaches.

6. Get guidance that targets the cause. Self-help only goes so far with deeply automatic habits, and a trained approach can speed things up.

One more thing about step 6: when you only fight the visible habit, another often pops up in its place. Suppress the blink and the jaw clenches. The behavior was never the root problem. It was your brain’s answer to fear and the feeling of being stuck.

Secondary behaviors in children vs. adults

Kids usually show them in simple ways: a quick eye blink, a tight lip, a pause before a tricky word, or suddenly going quiet. Adults often have a bigger toolkit, like word swapping and avoiding whole situations, mostly because they’ve had years to practice.

Neither is a character flaw. Both are learned. If your child tenses up or looks frustrated when words get stuck, it’s worth asking a speech-language pathologist to take a look instead of waiting it out. Early support usually makes things easier.

Progress is real, and it’s gradual

You won’t wake up one day with every behavior gone. Change looks quieter than that. You notice a blink that didn’t happen. You say a word you’d normally dodge. You take a call without rehearsing for ten minutes. Each small win tells your brain the old protection isn’t needed, and the habit loosens a little more. Setbacks happen, especially when you’re tired or stressed, and they don’t erase your progress.

Frequently asked questions

What are examples of secondary stuttering behaviors?
Hard blinking, head jerks, jaw tension, foot tapping, starter words like “um,” swapping a word for an easier one, and avoiding calls or conversations. Some are visible, and others, like scanning ahead for hard sounds, happen entirely in your head.

What are escape behaviors in stuttering?
They’re the moves you make while you’re stuck on a word, like blinking, jerking your head or pushing air out. They’re an attempt to break free of a block, and they sometimes work for a moment, which is why they become habits.

Do secondary stuttering behaviors go away?
They can fade. Because they’re learned, they can be unlearned, usually gradually and with practice. Stress and tiredness can bring them back for a while, and that doesn’t erase your progress.

Where to go from here

Reading about secondary stuttering behaviors is a solid first step. Changing them takes steady, daily practice, and the right support makes that practice feel a lot lighter. Start with one behavior, stay curious instead of critical, and let the small wins add up.

If you want to understand why these habits stick in the first place, take a look at how a neuroscience stuttering approach works with the brain instead of against it. When the brain stops seeing speech as a threat, the habits built to protect you lose their reason to exist.