On October 22, 2024, on the occasion of World Stuttering Awareness Day, Dr. Antonio Bitetti gave a radio interview on the topic of stuttering on the radio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Canton Ticino. The presenter Marco Pagani gave a brief introduction to the problem, also pausing to list the statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO) and recalling the famous film dedicated to King George VI, “The King’s Speech” affected by stuttering and well interpreted by the actor Colin Firth. Immediately after, Dr. Bitetti illustrated his point of view on this topic which has always been identified as a language problem. In truth, it is not because there is clear evidence that the stutterer knows how to express his language very well, but only in a context isolated from people.

Unfortunately, the dominant culture believes that stuttering is a language problem and everyone is trying to cure it with re-educational, phonetic and/or speech therapy methods, leaving aside the internal matrix of the problem. The presenter was quite surprised by Dr. Bitetti’s statements and understood the interpretative message regarding the emotional and relational implications of stuttering, greatly appreciating the description given by Dr. Bitetti in this interview.

The time is now ripe to decide to affirm that stuttering is not a language problem at all and also in the international therapeutic scenario the therapeutic model proposed by Dr. Antonio Bitetti should take hold, with his: Integrated Approach. This therapeutic model, now known throughout Italy, addresses stuttering even at an early age, on disfluent children aged between 2 and 5 years, intervening on the parents to avoid the chronicization of the problem and obtaining truly interesting results.