Stuttering affects the fluency of speech. It begins during childhood and, in some cases, lasts throughout life. The disorder is characterized by disruptions in the production of speech sounds, also called "disfluencies." Most people produce brief disfluencies from time to time. For instance, some words are repeated and others are preceded by "um" or "uh." Disfluencies are not necessarily a problem; however, they can impede communication when a person produces too many of them.
In most cases, stuttering has an impact on at least some daily activities. The specific activities that a person finds challenging to perform vary across individuals. For some people, communication difficulties only happen during specific activities, for example, talking on the telephone or talking before large groups. For most others, however, communication difficulties occur across a number of activities at home, school, or work. Some people may limit their participation in certain activities. Such "participation restrictions" often occur because the person is concerned about how others might react to disfluent speech. Other people may try to hide their disfluent speech from others by rearranging the words in their sentence (circumlocution), pretending to forget what they wanted to say, or declining to speak. Other people may find that they are excluded from participating in certain activities because of stuttering. Clearly, the impact of stuttering on daily life can be affected by how the person and others react to the disorder.
For young children, it is important to predict whether the stuttering is likely to continue. An evaluation consists of a series of tests, observations, and interviews designed to estimate the child's risk for continuing to stutter. Although there is some disagreement among SLTs about which risk factors are most important to consider, factors that are noted by many specialists include the following:
A family history of stuttering
Stuttering that has continued for 6 months or longer
Presence of other speech or language disorders
Strong fears or concerns about stuttering on the part of the child or the family
No single factor can be used to predict whether a child will continue to stutter. The combination of these factors can help SLTs determine whether treatment is indicated.
For older children and adults, the question of whether stuttering is likely to continue is somewhat less important, because the stuttering has continued at least long enough for it to become a problem in the person's daily life. For these individuals, an evaluation consists of tests, observations, and interviews that are designed to assess the overall severity of the disorder. In addition, the impact the disorder has on the person's ability to communicate and participate appropriately in daily activities is evaluated. Information from the evaluation is then used to develop a specific treatment program, one that is designed to:
Help the individual speak more fluently,
Communicate more effectively, and
Participate more fully in life activities.

Without early intervention children are at risk of all these issues
Not realising or being able to fulfil what they consider their full potential, ie. early intervention helps to ensure children have the opportunities to reach their full potential.
Experiencing problems with learning and understanding information ie. early intervention prevents children's learning and understanding from deteriorating or becoming worse.
Struggling to be independent
Sense of isolation
Becoming withdrawn
Difficulty in or