Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental speech disorder influenced by speech mechanics, motor control, and emotion. This article explores the science behind stuttering and provides step-by-step at‑home exercises backed by best practices. You will get clear daily practice plans, worksheets, and age‑adapted tips for children, teens, and adults to improve fluency and communication confidence.
How stuttering develops and the speech mechanics behind it
The Complex Dance of Speech Coordination
Speech is one of the most rapid motor tasks the human body performs. It requires the brain to coordinate dozens of muscles with millisecond precision. To understand how to gain better control at home, you first need to understand the four pillars of fluent speech: respiration, phonation, articulation, and prosody. In a typical conversation, these systems work in a seamless loop. Your brain plans the movement and your muscles execute it without you ever thinking about it. When this coordination is disrupted, stuttering events occur.
The Role of Respiration
Speech begins with the breath. This is not just normal breathing for survival; it is a highly controlled release of air. In fluent speech, you take a quick inhalation and then slowly release the air as you talk. Stuttering often disrupts this flow. You might try to speak when your lungs are nearly empty, or hold your breath before starting a sentence. This creates a lack of power for your voice. Retraining this at home involves learning to coordinate the start of your breath with the start of your vocalization, ensuring your speech has a steady foundation of air pressure.
Phonation and the Vocal Folds
Phonation happens when your vocal folds in the throat vibrate to create sound. For fluent speech, these folds must be relaxed enough to start vibrating gently. In many stuttering events, the vocal folds slam shut or stay too tense, causing a block where sound feels stuck in the throat. Modern research suggests that the timing signals from the brain to the larynx are slightly off in people who stutter. Exercises like easy onset help by teaching the vocal folds to start vibrating softly rather than with a hard, tense burst.
Articulation and Precision
Articulation involves your tongue, lips, and jaw shaping sound into specific words. This requires incredible speed. In typical speech, the articulators touch each other lightly and move on to the next sound immediately. During a stutter, these contacts often become too heavy. You might press your lips together too hard for a word starting with the letter ‘P’. This physical tension makes it difficult for the brain to transition to the next sound, which is where repetitions and prolongations usually happen. Learning light articulatory contacts can help reduce this physical struggle.
Prosody and the Rhythm of Speech
Prosody is the melody of your voice. It includes the rhythm, stress, and intonation that make you sound human rather than robotic. Stuttering often breaks this melody. When you focus too much on individual sounds, your speech can become choppy. This loss of rhythm makes it harder for the brain to maintain a steady flow. Rate control exercises are not just about talking slower; they are about giving your brain more time to process the motor plan while keeping the natural melody of your voice intact.
What Happens During a Stuttering Event
Primary Stuttering Behaviors
Stuttering is a disruption in the timing of the speech systems. It usually shows up in three primary ways. Repetitions happen when a sound or syllable is repeated. Prolongations occur when a sound is stretched out longer than intended. Blocks are often the most physically taxing; this is where the airflow or sound stops completely because the muscles are locked in place. Recent evidence from 2025 highlights that these events are linked to specific neurological pathways that affect how the brain sends timing signals to the speech muscles. You can read more about these genetic hotspots into stuttering origins to understand the biological basis of these disruptions.
Secondary Behaviors and Tension
Over time, the body develops secondary behaviors. These are physical movements like eye blinking, jaw jerking, or fist clenching. These usually start as a way to escape a block. Your brain learns that if you blink hard, the word finally comes out. Eventually, the blink becomes part of the stutter itself. These behaviors add more tension to the system and make the act of speaking even more exhausting. Addressing these at home requires a focus on physical relaxation and becoming aware of where you hold tension in your body.
Modern Evidence and Treatment Models
Fluency Shaping and Stuttering Modification
Clinical guidelines in 2025 support two main approaches for managing speech. Fluency shaping focuses on changing how you speak to prevent stutters from happening. It uses techniques like slower rates and easy onsets to build a new way of talking. Stuttering modification takes a different path, teaching you how to stutter with less tension. The goal is to reduce the struggle and the fear of stuttering. Both methods are evidence-based and often work best when used together. Fluency shaping gives you tools for control, while stuttering modification helps you handle the moments when control slips.
The Impact of Anxiety and Avoidance
Stuttering is not just a physical act; it involves a heavy emotional component. When you fear a specific word, you feel anxiety. This anxiety causes your muscles to tense up, making a physical block much more likely. This creates a cycle where the fear of stuttering actually maintains the motor patterns of the stutter. This is why addressing the cognitive side is so important. If you only work on the physical exercises but ignore the fear, the stuttering patterns often return in stressful situations.
Practical Implications for Home Practice
What You Can Target at Home
You can practice many physiological components in your own space. Exercises focusing on breathing control and easy onset are very effective. You can work on continuous phonation to keep your voice moving through a sentence. Rate control and articulatory precision are also great for home drills. These help retrain the timing of your speech. The goal of home practice is to make these motor patterns automatic through consistent and gradual work.
When to Seek Professional Guidance
Some aspects of speech therapy require a professional. Complex motor retraining or intensive programs for young children should be guided by a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP). If you notice a sudden onset of stuttering in an adult or neurological signs like dizziness, you should see a doctor immediately. Professional guidance is also necessary if the emotional impact of stuttering leads to severe social withdrawal. Understanding these boundaries helps you use home exercises safely and effectively.
Assessing needs, setting goals, and measuring progress at home
Measuring progress is the only way to know if home exercises are actually working. Without data, speech practice becomes a guessing game based on how you feel that day. Feelings are unreliable because they change with your mood or the weather. Objective numbers tell the truth about speech mechanics. This process starts with a baseline. You need to know exactly where you are before you can decide where you want to go. This is especially important in the United States where more than 80 million people worldwide stutter, including over 3 million Americans. Having a clear map of your speech patterns helps you stay focused during the weeks of practice ahead.
Objective Measures for Home Assessment
Percent Syllables Stuttered (%SS)
The most common way to measure stuttering is the percent of syllables stuttered. To do this at home, you need a recording of natural speech. Aim for a sample of 300 to 500 syllables. Listen to the recording and count every syllable spoken. Then, count every syllable that was stuttered. A stuttered syllable includes any sound repetition, prolongation, or block. If a person says “p-p-p-paper,” that is one stuttered syllable. Use this formula to find the percentage:
(Number of Stuttered Syllables / Total Number of Syllables) * 100 = %SS
Frequency Counts and Duration
Frequency counts involve tracking how often specific types of stutters happen. You might notice more blocks than repetitions. Write down the number of times each behavior occurs in a three-minute window. Duration sampling is another vital metric. Use a stopwatch to measure the length of the longest stuttering events. If the longest block lasts five seconds today, your goal might be to reduce that to two seconds. This measures the severity of the physical struggle rather than just the frequency.
Severity Rating Scales
A Likert scale from 1 to 9 is a simple tool for daily use. A rating of 1 means no stuttering or very mild disfluency. A rating of 9 represents extremely severe stuttering with significant physical tension. Parents should rate their child, and adults or teens should rate themselves. Comparing these ratings over a week provides a snapshot of speech consistency. It is helpful to see if speech is better in the morning or after a long day at work.
Subjective Measures and Participation
Communicative Participation Checklists
Speech is about more than just fluency; it is about how much you participate in life. Checklists help track avoidance behaviors. Ask yourself or your child these questions: Did you raise your hand in class? Did you answer the phone? Did you order food for yourself? A person might have a low %SS because they are staying silent. True progress involves a low %SS combined with high participation. You can find standard checklists online or create a simple one that tracks three daily speaking goals.
Baseline Recording Procedures
Sample Tasks to Record
To get an accurate baseline, you must record speech in different situations. Speech changes depending on the pressure of the environment. Record these four tasks:
1. Read a short passage of about 200 words.
2. Record a two-minute monologue about a favorite hobby or a recent trip.
3. Record a three-minute dialog with a family member.
4. Record a phone call to a local business to ask about their hours.
These samples represent different levels of linguistic and emotional stress.
Storage and Timestamping
Store these clips in a dedicated folder on a computer or a cloud drive. Name each file with the date and the task type. Use a simple spreadsheet to log the timestamps of the most significant stuttering events. This allows you to go back and listen to the same moments after a month of practice. Seeing the physical change in your face or hearing the reduction in tension provides a huge boost in motivation.
Setting SMART Goals
Preschoolers and School-Age Children
Goals for young children should be parent-led and focused on positive speech experiences. A SMART goal for a preschooler might be to use easy onsets in 80 percent of ten-word phrases during play by week four. For a school-age child, a goal could be to reduce the %SS from 10 percent to 5 percent during a five-minute dinner conversation within eight weeks. These goals are specific, measurable, and time-bound.
Teens and Adults
Older speakers need goals that target both motor control and confidence. A teen might set a goal to increase their average fluent run length from five words to twelve words during a class presentation. An adult might aim to reduce physical tension in the jaw by 30 percent during work meetings over two months. These objectives keep the focus on gradual improvement rather than an overnight cure.
| Age Group | Sample SMART Goal | Measurement Method |
|---|---|---|
| Preschool | Use easy onset in 80% of play phrases | Parent tally during 10 min play |
| School Age | Reduce %SS from 12% to 6% in reading | Weekly 200 word reading sample |
| Teen | Order food at a restaurant twice a week | Participation log |
| Adult | Decrease block duration to under 2 seconds | Stopwatch timing of recordings |
Safety and Red Flags
When to Seek Professional Help
Home exercises are effective, but some situations require immediate professional evaluation by a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist or a pediatrician. If stuttering begins suddenly after the age of six, this is a red flag. Most developmental stuttering starts between ages two and five. Sudden onset in adulthood is another serious concern that requires a neurological exam. Physical struggle that includes gasping for air or facial grimacing suggests a level of tension that needs expert guidance. If you notice rapid worsening over a few days, stop home exercises and consult a professional. Statistics show that 5% of U.S. children ages 3 to 17 have a speech disorder, and early intervention is the best way to prevent persistent issues.
Scheduling and Collaboration
Daily and Weekly Logs
Consistency is the secret to speech change. Use a timer to ensure you practice for at least 15 to 20 minutes every day. Split this into two shorter sessions if focus is an issue. Keep a daily log that tracks the date, the exercise performed, and a self-rating of tension. Many apps now offer metronomes or syllable counters to help with these measurements. If you are working with an SLP, share these logs during your sessions. This collaboration ensures that your home practice aligns with your clinical goals and helps the therapist adjust your plan based on real-world data.
Step-by-step daily exercises, plans, worksheets, and progression for kids, teens, and adults
Consistent daily practice is the foundation of speech motor retraining. Research shows that short sessions every day work better than one long session once a week. This approach helps the brain build new pathways for speech control. You should aim for a quiet environment where you feel safe to experiment with your voice. The goal is not perfect fluency but rather a feeling of control over the speech mechanism.
Structured Support for Preschoolers
Parent-Led Practice for Ages Two to Five
Practice for young children focuses on modeling rather than correction. About 5% of children in the United States experience a period of stuttering during these early years. You can find more details on these trends at the Stuttering Foundation. The daily session should last about ten minutes during a calm activity like drawing or playing with blocks.
Six-Week Sample Plan
Weeks one and two focus on slow speech. You will use a slow rate while playing. Weeks three and four introduce easy onsets. You will start words with a gentle breath. Weeks five and six focus on light touches. You will make your lips and tongue move softly. Each session follows a simple template: spend two minutes on a warm-up with slow breathing, five minutes on the core activity, and three minutes on a fun carryover game.
Specific Exercises
Easy Onset Modeling
Start your own sentences with a soft breath. You might say “Hhhhhhi” or “Aaaaaapple” with a slight whisper at the start. Do not ask the child to repeat you. Just let them hear the gentle start. Use a script like “I am going to use my soft voice today.”
Turtle Talk Pacing
Move your hand like a turtle crawling while you speak. This helps the child see the rhythm. You can say “Let us talk slow like the turtle.”
Light Articulatory Contacts
When you say words starting with B or P, touch your lips together very lightly. Avoid pressing them hard. This reduces the physical tension that leads to blocks.
Guided Practice for School-Age Children and Teens
Collaborative Practice for Ages Six to Eighteen
Teens often face social pressure. Practice should include role plays for school situations. A 2025 study from Michigan State University highlighted how stuttering impacts social participation in school. Daily sessions should last twenty-five minutes.
Six-Week Sample Plan
Weeks one and two focus on diaphragmatic breathing and phrase chunking. Weeks three and four introduce syllable timing with a metronome. Weeks five and six focus on desensitization and voluntary stuttering. The session template includes a five-minute warm-up, ten minutes for core drills, five minutes for role play, and five minutes for reflection.
Specific Exercises
Phrase Chunking
Break long sentences into small groups of words. Say “I want to go / to the park / after school.” Pause at each slash. This prevents running out of air.
Metronome Pacing
Use a metronome app set to 60 beats per minute. Say one syllable per beat. This creates a steady rhythm. You can increase the speed as you get more comfortable.
Voluntary Stuttering
Stutter on purpose on a non-feared word. This helps reduce the fear of real stutters. Use a script like “I am going to s-s-s-say this word with a bounce.”
Self-Guided Practice for Adults
Advanced Control and Desensitization
Adults often deal with long-term habits. Practice focuses on modifying the stutter when it happens. Daily sessions should last forty minutes. This can be split into two twenty-minute blocks.
Six-Week Sample Plan
Weeks one and two focus on continuous phonation and easy onsets. Weeks three and four focus on pull-outs and cancellations. Weeks five and six focus on high-pressure situations like phone calls. The session template includes ten minutes of breathing and warm-up, twenty minutes of core drills, and ten minutes of real-world application.
Specific Exercises
Continuous Phonation
Keep your voice box vibrating throughout the whole sentence. Do not stop the airflow between words. It sounds like a gentle hum connecting everything.
Pull-Outs
When you feel a block, do not push harder. Instead, slow down the sound and slide out of it gently. It is like stretching a rubber band.
Mirror Monitoring
Practice your speech in front of a mirror. Watch for tension in your neck or jaw. If you see tension, stop and reset with a deep breath.
Tracking Progress and Worksheets
Daily Practice Log Template
Use this format to track your work every day. Consistent logging helps identify patterns and plateaus.
| Date | Task Type | Duration | Self Rating (1-10) | Tension Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12/24/2025 | Easy Onset | 10 min | 4 | Low jaw tension |
| 12/25/2025 | Pull Outs | 15 min | 6 | Tightness in throat |
Progression Criteria
You should move to the next level when you reach 90% accuracy in your current environment. Start at home in a quiet room. Move to a different room. Then try practicing while walking outside. Finally, use the techniques during a phone call or at a store. If you hit a plateau, reduce the difficulty for two days. Focus on easy tasks to rebuild your confidence.
Technology and Safety Notes
Using Digital Tools
Metronome apps are helpful for pacing. You can also use video recordings to analyze your speech. Watch the video without sound first to see physical tension. Then listen to the audio to hear your rhythm. Altered auditory feedback devices can help some people, but they are not a replacement for motor training and often have limited long-term effects.
Voice Care and Safety
Speech practice should never hurt. Drink plenty of water to keep your vocal folds hydrated. If your throat feels sore, stop immediately. Avoid whispering for long periods as it can strain the voice. If you feel severe frustration, take a break. Stuttering is often linked to neurological pathways. Recent genetic research published in 2025 identified 57 hotspots related to these pathways. This confirms that stuttering is a physical condition, not caused by nervousness. Be patient with your progress.
Common questions about at-home stuttering practice
How long will it take before I see real improvement in my speech?
Most people notice changes in their speech control within 4 to 12 weeks of consistent daily work. Research shows that the brain needs this time to build new motor patterns and reorganize speech pathways. You might notice a reduction in physical tension before you see a drop in the number of stutters. Small wins often happen in quiet settings first.
Next Step
Keep a simple log for one month. Note one small win every day like a smooth phone call or a relaxed greeting to track these subtle shifts.
How much daily practice is actually needed to make a difference?
Clinical consensus suggests 15 to 30 minutes of practice every day. It is better to do three 10-minute sessions than one long hour once a week. Short bursts keep the brain engaged and prevent vocal fatigue. Consistent short sessions help the new techniques become automatic habits.
Next Step
Use habit stacking to find time. Practice easy onsets for 5 minutes while making coffee and 5 minutes after you brush your teeth at night.
Can these exercises make my stuttering worse?
It is very rare for structured practice to increase disfluency if you follow a gradual plan. Sometimes people feel they are stuttering more because they are paying closer attention to their speech. This is usually a temporary phase of increased awareness. If you feel physical strain or your frustration hits a high level, you should stop the session.
Next Step
Monitor your effort level on a scale of 1 to 10. If your frustration stays above a 7 for three days in a row, reduce the difficulty of your exercises for a week.
When should a child start a structured at-home practice plan?
Children as young as 3 can begin if the stuttering has lasted more than 6 months. Early intervention is the best way to prevent persistent stuttering. About 80 percent of children recover naturally, but structured support helps those at risk for long-term issues.
Next Step
Use this script for a young child: “Let us play with our turtle talk. We will make our words soft and slow like a turtle walking in the grass.”
What is the specific role of parents in home practice?
Parents should act as supportive coaches rather than critics. Your job is to model the techniques and provide a low-pressure environment. Focus on what the child says rather than just how they say it. Modeling slow and relaxed speech yourself is more effective than telling the child to slow down.
Next Step
Try the 2-to-1 rule. Give two pieces of positive feedback for every one gentle correction. Say, “I loved how you kept going even when that word was tricky.”
Is professional therapy required if I am doing these exercises at home?
Home practice is a powerful tool, but it does not replace a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist. Professionals can spot subtle tension patterns you might miss. They are essential if the stuttering causes significant emotional distress or if progress stalls. You can find more data on how many people stutter in the USA to understand the scope of this community.
Next Step
Seek a professional evaluation if you see no progress after 8 weeks of home practice or if the stuttering started suddenly after age 6.
How do I handle performance anxiety in school or work situations?
Desensitization is the key to managing anxiety. Voluntary stuttering helps reduce the fear of a block. When you choose to stutter on purpose, you take the power away from the involuntary moment. This builds confidence in high-pressure environments like classrooms or meetings.
Next Step
Practice this script in a low-stakes setting: “Hi, I am practicing my speech today so I might stutter a little bit.” It helps me stay in control.
What should I do about secondary behaviors like eye blinking?
Secondary behaviors are often physical attempts to break out of a block. They become habits over time. Focus on pull-out techniques to ease through the tension rather than trying to force the word out. This addresses the root of the tension instead of the physical reaction.
Next Step
Use a mirror during practice. When you feel a secondary behavior starting, stop the word. Take a breath and restart the word with a light touch on your lips.
Are there any safe medications or devices for stuttering in 2025?
As of late 2025, there are no FDA-approved medications specifically for stuttering. Some people use Altered Auditory Feedback devices. These can help in the short term, but research shows the effects often fade without speech therapy. The focus remains on motor training and behavioral techniques.
Next Step
Focus on motor training exercises first. If you consider a device, look for one with a trial period to see if the effect lasts beyond the first week.
How do I handle a relapse or a long plateau in my progress?
Progress is rarely a straight line. Stress or life changes can cause a temporary increase in stuttering. A plateau often means your brain is consolidating new skills. In December 2025, the NIH awarded 3.1 million dollars to Michigan State University to study these long-term impacts, highlighting that recovery is a complex process.
Next Step
Go back to basics for one week. Spend 10 minutes a day on simple diaphragmatic breathing and easy onset words to reset your foundation.
What are the best tips for maintaining my gains long-term?
Consistency is more important than intensity. Keep a speech journal even after you reach your goals. Vary the contexts where you practice to ensure the skills stick in the real world. Monthly check-ins with your data can help you catch any slips early.
Next Step
Schedule a monthly maintenance check. Record a phone call once a month to ensure your fluency levels remain stable and your tension stays low.
Practical next steps, results, and staying motivated
Moving from theory to daily practice requires a shift in how you view speech. You are not just trying to stop a stutter; you are building a new motor pattern. This process takes time because the brain needs thousands of repetitions to make a new movement automatic. Success comes from small gains that happen over weeks, not overnight.
Refining Your Core Strategies
Easy Onset Application
When practicing Easy Onset this week, focus specifically on the start of vowels or hard consonants. Ensure you are letting the vocal folds start vibrating gently instead of slamming together. It should feel like a soft breath before the sound. Move to short phrases only when single words feel effortless.
Syllable Pacing Precision
If you are using pacing, ensure every syllable gets its own beat to break the rushed rhythm that triggers a stutter. Using a metronome app set to 60 beats per minute creates a robotic sound at first, but this is necessary to stabilize the speech timing mechanism. As you improve, you can increase the speed or make the rhythm feel more natural.
Voluntary Stuttering Mindset
Remember that voluntary stuttering is a mental strategy to reduce fear. When you choose to stutter on purpose in a controlled way, the physical tension often drops. Try adding a simple repetition to a word when you are talking to someone you trust to prove to your brain that stuttering is not a disaster.
The 7-Day Starter Plan
This plan is designed for any age. It focuses on building the habit of daily practice. Keep sessions short. Consistency matters more than the total number of minutes in one sitting.
| Day | Focus Area | Daily Target |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Diaphragmatic breathing and easy onset on vowels | 10 minutes |
| Day 2 | Easy onset on common daily words like “hello” or “yes” | 10 minutes |
| Day 3 | Syllable pacing with a metronome while reading a book | 15 minutes |
| Day 4 | Combining easy onset with short three-word phrases | 15 minutes |
| Day 5 | Mirror practice focusing on reducing facial tension | 10 minutes |
| Day 6 | Voluntary stuttering during a low-stress phone call | 5 minutes |
| Day 7 | Review all techniques and record a progress clip | 20 minutes |
Staying Motivated and Building Habits
Habit Stacking
Attach your speech practice to something you already do. Practice easy onset while you brush your teeth. Use syllable pacing while you walk the dog. When you pair a new habit with an old one, you are much more likely to stick with it. You do not have to find extra time; you just use the time you already have.
Gamification
Give yourself points for every successful practice session. Set a reward for reaching 50 points. This could be a favorite snack or an hour of a hobby. For kids, a sticker chart works well. Seeing the visual progress makes the hard work feel like a game. It shifts the focus from the stutter to the effort you are putting in.
Accountability
Tell a friend or family member about your goals. Ask them to check in once a week. If you are working with a professional, these home logs are great for your check-ins. Knowing someone will ask about your progress provides a gentle push to keep going on days when you feel tired.
Realistic Expectations
Do not expect perfection. Even people who do not stutter have moments of disfluency. Your goal is better control and more confidence. Measure your success by how much you participate in life. Are you ordering the food you actually want? Are you raising your hand in class? These are the wins that matter. Consistent practice leads to measurable small gains. Over months, these small gains turn into a significant improvement in how you connect with the world. Focus on the process. The results will follow.
References
- How Many People Stutter in the USA? – dr fluency — About 1% of Americans—over 3 million people—stutter. Learn who's affected, why estimates vary, and how Dr. Fluency USA provides effective treatment…..
- Stuttering Market Size, Trends YoY Growth Rate 2025-2032 — Stuttering Market holds a forecasted revenue of USD 57.4 Mn in 2025 and is likely to cross USD 123.0 Mn by 2032 with a steady annual growth rate of 11.50%
- NIH awards $3.1M to MSU to study the impact of stuttering on children — MSU researchers received a $3.1M NIH grant to study stuttering in children, aiming to improve early support, treatment, and overall …
- Quick Statistics About Voice, Speech, Language | NIDCD – NIH — 5% of U.S. children ages 3-17 have a speech disorder that lasted for a week or longer during the past 12 months. · The prevalence of speech sound …
- Large-scale study uncovers 57 genetic hotspots into stuttering origins — Findings published in Nature Genetics point to 48 genes associated with stuttering and highlight neurological pathways of risk.
- FAQ | Stuttering Foundation: A Nonprofit Organization Helping … — More than 80 million people worldwide stutter, which is about 1% of the population. In the United States, that's over 3 million Americans who stutter. What …
- Facts About Stuttering | Research-Based Information from the NSA — About eighty percent of children who begin to stutter will recover naturally. Those who continue into their school years are more likely to …
Legal Disclaimers & Brand Notices
The content provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The speech exercises, practice plans, and techniques described are intended to support general communication goals and should not replace the professional judgment of a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) or medical doctor. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare provider regarding a medical condition or speech disorder. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this article.
All product names, logos, and brands mentioned within this text are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this article are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement or affiliation.
