generally considered to be approximately 1%. cross cultural cross-cultural studies of stuttering prevalence were very active in early and mid-20th century, particularly under the influence of the works of wendell johnson, who claimed that the onset of stuttering was connected to the cultural expectations and the pressure put on young children by anxious parents. johnson claimed there were cultures where stuttering, and even the word "stutterer", were absent (for example, among some tribes of american indians). later studies found that this claim was not supported by the facts, so the influence of cultural factors in stuttering research declined. it is generally accepted by contemporary scholars that stuttering is present in every culture and in every race, although the attitude towards the actual prevalence differs. some believe stuttering occurs in all cultures and races at similar rates, about 1% of general population (and is about 5% among young children) all around the world. a us-based study indicated that there were no racial or ethnic differences in the incidence of stuttering in preschool children. at the same time, there are cross-cultural studies indicating that the difference between cultures may exist. for example, summarizing prevalence studies, e. cooper and c. cooper conclude: "on the basis of the data currently available, it appears the prevalence of fluency disorders varies among the cultures of the world, with some indications that the prevalence of fluency disorders labeled as stuttering is higher among black populations than white or asian populations" (cooper & cooper, 1993:197). in his "stuttering and its treatment: eleven lectures" mark onslow remarked that "one recent study with many participants (n=119,367) convincingly reported more stuttering among african americans than other americans. why this could be the case is challenging to explain ..." different regions of the world are researched very unevenly. the largest number of studies has been conducted in european countries and in north america, where the experts agree on the mean estimate to be about 1% of the general population (bloodtein, 1995. a handbook on stuttering). african populations, particularly from west africa, might have the highest stuttering prevalence in the world—reaching in some populations 5%, 6% and even over 9%. many regions of the world are not researched sufficiently, and for some major regions there are no prevalence studies at all (for example, in china). some claim the reason for this might be a lower incidence in the general population in china. history lewis carroll, the well-known author of alice's adventures in wonderland, had a stammer, as did his siblings. because of the unusual-sounding speech that is produced and the behaviors and attitudes that accompany a stutter, it has long been a subject of scientific interest and speculation as well as discrimination and ridicule. people who stutter can be traced back centuries to the likes of demosthenes, who tried to control his disfluency by speaking with pebbles in his mouth. the talmud interprets bible passages to indicate moses was also a person who stuttered, and that placing a burning coal in his mouth had caused him to be "slow and hesitant of speech" (exodus 4, v.10). galen's humoral theories were influential in europe in the middle ages for centuries afterward. in this theory, stuttering was attributed to imbalances of the four bodily humors—yellow bile, blood, black bile, and phlegm. hieronymus mercurialis, writing in the sixteenth century, proposed methods to redress the imbalance including changes in diet, reduced libido (in men only), and purging. believing that fear aggravated stuttering, he suggested techniques to overcome this. humoral manipulation continued to be a dominant treatment for stuttering until the eighteenth century. partly due to a perceived lack of intelligence because of his stutter, the man who became the roman emperor claudius was initially shunned from the public eye and excluded from public office. in and around eighteenth and nineteenth century europe, surgical interventions for stuttering were recommended, including cutting the tongue with scissors, removing a triangular wedge from the posterior tongue, and cutting nerves, or neck and lip muscles. others recommended shortening the uvula or removing the tonsils. all were abandoned due to the high danger of bleeding to death and their failure to stop stuttering. less drastically, jean marc gaspard itard placed a small forked golden plate under the tongue in order to support "weak" muscles. notker balbulus, from a medieval manuscript. italian pathologist giovanni morgagni attributed stuttering to deviations in the hyoid bone, a conclusion he came to via autopsy. blessed notker of st. gall (c. 840 – 912), called balbulus ("the stutterer") and described by his biographer as being "delicate of body but not of mind, stuttering of tongue but not of intellect, pushing boldly forward in things divine," was invoked against stammering. a famous briton who stammered was king george vi. george vi went through years of speech therapy, most successfully under australian speech therapist lionel logue, for his stammer. this is dealt with in the academy award-winning film the king's speech (2010) in which colin firth plays george vi. the film is based on an original screenplay by david seidler, who also stuttered until age 16. another notable case was that of british prime minister winston churchill. churchill claimed, perhaps not directly discussing himself, that "ometimes a slight and not unpleasing stammer or impediment has been of some assistance in securing the attention of the audience ..." however, those who knew churchill and commented on his stutter believed that it was or had been a significant problem for him. his secretary phyllis moir commented that "winston churchill was born and grew up with a stutter" in her 1941 book i was winston churchill's private secretary. she also noted about one incident, "'it's s-s-simply s-s-splendid,' he stuttered—as he always did when excited." louis j. alber, who helped to arrange a lecture tour of the united states, wrote in volume 55 of the american mercury (1942) that "churchill struggled to express his feelings but his stutter caught him in the throat and his face turned purple" and that "born with a stutter and a lisp, both caused in large measure by a defect in his palate, churchill was at first seriously hampered in his public speaking. it is characteristic of the man's perseverance that, despite his staggering handicap, he made himself one of the greatest orators of our time." for centuries "cures" such as consistently drinking water from a snail shell for the rest of one's life, "hitting a stutterer in the face when the weather is cloudy", strengthening the tongue as a muscle, and various herbal remedies were used. similarly, in the past people have subscribed to theories about the causes of stuttering which today are considered odd. proposed causes of stuttering have included tickling an infant too much, eating improperly during breastfeeding, allowing an infant to look in the mirror, cutting a child's hair before the child spoke his or her first words, having too small a tongue, or the "work of the devil". some people who stutter, who are part of the disability rights movement, have begun to embrace their stuttering voices as an important part of their identity. in july 2015 the uk ministry of defence (mod) announced the launch of the defence stammering network to support and champion the interests of british military personnel and mod civil servants who stammer and to raise awareness of the condition. bilingual stuttering identification bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages. many bilingual people have been exposed to more than one language since birth and throughout childhood. since language and culture are relatively fluid factors in a person's understanding and production of language, bilingualism may be a feature that impacts speech fluency. there are several ways during which stuttering may be noticed in bilingual children including the following. the child is mixing vocabulary (code mixing) from both languages in one sentence. this is a normal process that helps the child increase their skills in the weaker language, but may trigger a temporary increase in disfluency. the child is having difficulty finding the correct word to express ideas resulting in an increase in normal speech disfluency. the child is having difficulty using grammatically complex sentences in one or both languages as compared to other children of the same age. also, the child may make grammatical mistakes. developing proficiency in both languages may be gradual, so development may be uneven between the two languages. adding a second or third language between the ages of three and five years of age may cause stuttering to increase (become more severe). however, this may be the case only when: (1) the child's first language is not strong or the child is experiencing difficulties in their first language, (2) one language is used more than the other or, (3) the child resists speaking the additional language. stuttering may present differently depending on the languages the individual uses. for example, morphological and other linguistic differences between languages may make presentation of disfluency appear to be more or less of a problem depending on the individual case. research much research is being conducted to look at the prevalence of stuttering in bilingual populations and the differences between languages. for instance, one study concluded that bilingual children who spoke english and another language had an increased risk of stuttering and a lower chance of recovery from stuttering than monolingual speakers and speakers who spoke solely a language other than english. another study, though methodologically weak, showed relatively indistinguishable percentages of monolingual and bilingual people who stutter. due to so much conflicting data, the relationship between bilingualism and stuttering has been called enigmatic, which can demonstrate the intricacies of the topic and encourages more research to be conducted in order to sway the belief of impact the relationship between bilingualism and stuttering has. in popular culture jazz and eurodance musician scatman john wrote the song "scatman (ski ba bop ba dop bop)" to help children who stutter overcome adversity. born john paul larkin, scatman spoke with a stutter himself and won the american speech-language-hearing association's annie glenn award for outstanding service to the stuttering community. arkwright, the main protagonist in the bbc sitcom open all hours, had a severe stutter that was used for comic effect. laxman, a supporting character in indian comedy film golmaal (2010), had stammering problem. stuttering pride self portrait of paul aston stuttering. aston wished to create a positive picture of himself stuttering to explore the visual side of his diverse and exciting speech patterns. stuttering pride (or stuttering advocacy) is a social movement repositioning stuttering as a valuable and respectable way of speaking. the movement seeks to counter the societal narratives in which temporal and societal expectations dictate how communication takes place. in this sense, the stuttering pride movement challenges the pervasive societal narrative of stuttering as a defect and instead positions stuttering as a valuable and respectable way of speaking in its own right. the movement encourages stutterers to take pride in their unique speech patterns and in what stuttering can tell us about the world. it also advocates for societal adjustments to allow stutterers equal access to education and employment opportunities. stuttering pride has drawn ideas and inspiration from disability rights, in particular the development of the social model of disability and the neurodiversity paradigm. for instance, the neurodiversity movement has led some in the stuttering community to advocate for what can be gained from the experience of stuttering. thus, stuttering pride activists advocate for celebration and respect of stuttered speech. in terms of stuttering therapies, some stuttering pride activists have suggested therapy approaches that focus on fluent speech as the goal can be unhelpful and damaging to those who stammer. other activists suggest "it is important that a social or cultural model does not entirely exclude medicine or speech therapy”, but is used “to ask critical questions about how some of the assumptions of a curative model of speech might injure dysfluent individuals". stammering pride foregrounds an emerging stammering culture. crucially, stuttering culture highlights the power of creative writers, artists, and musicians to subvert concepts of 'normative' speech through the power of expressive and generative dysfluency. stuttering pride activists propose stuttering as a form of vocal and linguistic diversity that enriches our language, ideas, and art forms. for instance, the cultural enrichment of stuttering is apparent in musical elements that take