Women's Health May 29, 2026 0 Comments

Unlock Your Brain’s Secret Signal: This Everyday Speaking Habit Could Be the Early Warning for Cognitive Decline!

Ever catch yourself tossing out a casual “um” or “uh” mid-conversation and wonder if your brain just hit a tiny pause button? Turns out, those little speech quirks might be more than just fillers—they could hint at how sharp your cognitive gears are turning. New research dives deep into the rhythm and hiccups in our speech, linking things like pauses and filler words to cognitive performance—and yes, even early signs of dementia. But before you start freaking out over your “likes” and “uhs,” take heart: occasional slip-ups are totally normal. It’s when these hiccups start to feel like a roadblock to finding words that experts say it’s worth paying close attention. Intrigued? Here’s the lowdown from brain pros who say this research could change how we track the subtle mental shifts that creep up with age—and maybe even help catch dementia early. LEARN MORE

3 min read

New research found that pauses, filler words, and the timing of speech patterns were linked to cognitive performance.
Experts say this research could help track subtle changes leading to dementia in the future.
It’s not a big deal if you use filler words occasionally, but suddenly having difficulty finding words can signal deeper problems that may require a specialist’s evaluation.

It’s completely normal to add “ums” and “uhs” to your speech when you talk. While practically everyone does this, new research suggests that some speech patterns that include these so-called filler words could be associated with cognitive decline, an early sign of dementia. Experts say this latest data might provide a useful framework for clinicians to study dementia in the future.

Keep in mind that doesn’t mean that you’re destined to develop dementia if you throw a lot of “likes” or pauses into your speech. But this study does add some interesting context to the existing information we have around dementia and how we communicate.

Here’s what researchers found, plus what brain experts want you to take away from the news.

Meet the experts: Daniel H. Daneshvar, MD, PhD, brain injury specialist at Mass General Brigham and chief of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School and Davide Cappon, PhD, neuropsychologist at Tufts Medical Center.

What did the study find?

The research, published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, was divided into two study groups. The first recruited 67 healthy older adults between the ages of 65 and 75, while the second recruited 174 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 90.

For both groups, participants were shown detailed images and asked to describe what they saw. Participants were also asked to do tests to measure their executive function, which is the group of mental abilities involved in memory, planning, attention, and flexible thinking.

From there, the researchers used AI to analyze the participants’ speech recordings. This analysis detected hundreds of subtle elements about the participants’ speech, including how long they paused while speaking, use of filler words, and the timing of their speech patterns.

Researchers found that “speech disfluencies,” or interruptions in the flow of speech, helped predict how well participants performed on cognitive tests.

“The findings revealed associations between word-finding ability in natural speech and general executive function across the adult lifespan, supporting natural speech analysis as a convenient and sensitive assessment of general cognitive ability,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

What’s the link between this study and diagnosing dementia?

It’s important to keep in mind that the study found a link between speech habits and problems with thinking (including dementia), it didn’t find that using filler words means you have dementia. It’s more of an association rather than a diagnosis.

“Filler words are extremely common in everyday speech. Nearly everyone uses them,” says Daniel H. Daneshvar, MD, PhD, a brain injury specialist at Mass General Brigham and chief of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. “In normal conversation, they can serve a useful purpose by giving the speaker a moment to organize a thought or retrieve a word. On their own, these filler words are not concerning and do not indicate that someone has dementia.”

But word retrieval issues can signal deeper cognitive issues, including dementia, according to Davide Cappon, PhD, a neuropsychologist at Tufts Medical Center. “Word retrieval problems are among the most common early complaints we hear in memory clinics,” he says. “Patients often say, ‘I know what I want to say, but I can’t get the word out.’ That can lead to pauses or talking around a word they can’t quickly retrieve.”

A change in speech pattern is what matters most, according to Dr. Daneshvar. “If someone who has always spoken fluently begins to have new word-finding difficulty, trouble completing thoughts, or difficulty following conversations, especially if accompanied by memory changes or problems with activities of daily living, that is absolutely something worth discussing with a doctor,” he says.

How to stop using filler words as often

If you’d like to weed out filler words from your everyday vocabulary (whether to keep your mind sharp or for other reasons), there are a few things you can try.

“The most practical strategies are to slow down, pause before answering, speak in shorter sentences, and become comfortable with silence,” Dr. Daneshvar says. “Recording yourself briefly can also help build awareness of when filler words appear, especially during transitions between ideas.”

But Cappon stresses that there’s no need to worry about your cognitive health if you drop the occasional “uh” or “um.” “Healthy people do that constantly,” he says. Still, the newest research is useful. “One of the more promising aspects of this work is the possibility that natural speech analysis could eventually help us track subtle cognitive changes longitudinally in a low-burden, real-world way.”

Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Self, Glamour, and more. She has a master’s degree from American University, lives by the beach, and hopes to own a teacup pig and taco truck one day.

Carina Hsieh, MPH, is the deputy features editor of Women’s Health. She has more than a decade’s worth of experience working in media and has covered everything from beauty, fashion, travel, lifestyle, pets, to health.

She began her career as an intern in the fashion closet at Cosmopolitan where she worked her way up to Senior Sex & Relationships Editor. While covering women’s health there, she discovered her passion for health service journalism and took a break to get her Masters in Public Health. Post-grad school, she worked as a freelance writer and as The Daily Beast’s first Beauty, Health, and Wellness Reporter.

Carina is an alum of the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Yale School of Public Health. She and her French Bulldog, Bao Bao, split their time between Brooklyn and Connecticut. She enjoys reformer Pilates, (slow) running, and smelling the fancy toiletries in boutique fitness class locker rooms.