Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of illustrations -- Preface -- 1 The search for understanding -- Seeking explanation -- Causality and stuttering -- Causality: issues of logic -- A Realist view of causality -- Establishing cause: necessary and sufficient conditions -- The causal field -- Distal and proximal cause -- Definitions -- Fallacies of causal reasoning -- 2 The role of theory in the sciences -- Theory in the physical sciences -- Kuhn and scientific revolutions -- Theory in the human sciences -- Paradigms -- Laws -- Theories -- Hypotheses -- Models -- Pseudoscience -- Note -- 3 Evaluating theories -- Testability and falsifiability -- Explanatory power -- Parsimony -- Heuristic value -- Summary and discussion -- 4 Historical perspectives on selected past and present theories of stuttering -- Influences of the zeitgeist -- Psychology (a very brief history) -- Cerebral dominance -- Neurophysiology -- Culture and language -- Chaos theory -- Conclusion -- 5 What should a theory of stuttering explain? -- The problem of definition -- Operationalizing stuttering -- Topography -- Onset and development -- Natural recovery -- Genetics -- Variability -- 6 Theories of stuttering -- Introduction -- Sensory-motor modelling theory -- The interhemispheric interference model -- The variability model -- Speech motor skill theory -- Speech concatenation theory -- The Packman and Attanasio 3-factor model of moments of stuttering -- Extended GODIVA model -- 7 Theories of stuttering -- The anticipatory struggle hypothesis -- The covert repair hypothesis -- The vicious circle (cycle) hypothesis -- EXPLAN -- The variable release threshold hypothesis -- 8 Theories of stuttering: multifactorial models -- The demands and capacities model -- The dynamic multifactorial model -- Commentary on multifactorial models