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Attempts to differentially diagnose stuttering from normal non fluent children acoustically have received central, theoretical and practical attention in recent years. However, temporal aspects of acoustic analysis of speech in dys / disfluent children has been relatively neglected, and this is the focus of the present study. The study investigated durational aspects of the silent intervals (IID), spoken repetition units (ITD), fluent portions (FTD), total duration (TD) and the number of iterations within sound /syllable repetitions in the speech of stuttering and normal non fluent children who speak Tamil as their native language. The results reveal significant differences between the groups in all the parameters. The discussion focuses on the results from a theoretical (stuttering as a motor control disorder) and a clinical (differential diagnostic cue) perspective