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; computing a first search priority for a first portion of the speech input following the speech disfluency and a second search priority for a second portion of the speech input preceding the speech disfluency, wherein each of the first search priority and the second search priority is computed based on a measure of the disfluency; in response to determining that the first search priority is less than the second search priority, determining whether the first search priority is lower than a threshold minimum search priority; in response to determining that the first search priority is lower than the threshold minimum search priority, determining an alternative query input by automatically replacing the first portion of the speech input following the speech disfluency with another word or phrase; 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; and presenting the subset of content items to the user.