1. A method for using speech disfluencies detected in speech input to assist in interpreting the input, the method comprising: providing access to a set of content items, each of the content items being associated with metadata that describes the corresponding content item; receiving a speech input from a user, the input intended by the user to identify at least one desired content item; detecting a speech disfluency in the speech input; determining a measure of confidence of the user in a portion of the speech input following the speech disfluency; upon a condition in which the confidence measure does not exceed a threshold value, determining an alternative query input based on replacing the portion of the speech input following the speech disfluency with another word or phrase and selecting a subset of content items from the set of content items based on comparing the speech input, the alternative query input, and the metadata associated with the subset of content items; upon a condition in which the confidence measure exceeds a threshold value, selecting a subset of content items from the set of content items based on comparing the speech input and the metadata associated with the subset of content items; and presenting the subset of content items to the user.