Many children show disfluent breaks in their speech when their language skills are developing.
Some children persist in having these disfluencies and develop stuttering. This happens across
the world, in all languages, equally as often to children who speak only one language and to
those who speak 2 or more languages. Some children will continue to stutter over time if they
don’t get help. We don’t know exactly what causes developmental stuttering. Two things we do
know for certain is that parents do NOT cause stuttering and developmental stuttering does NOT
indicate problems with your child’s intelligence.
So, what exactly is stuttering? STUTTERING HAPPENS WHEN A PERSON WHO IS TALKING KNOWS WHAT
THEY WANT TO SAY BUT THE WORDS SOUND LIKE THEY GET STUCK WHEN THEY ARE COMING OUT.
Stuttering is when a speaker repeats parts of words or very short words; when a speaker holds onto a
sound making it long; or when a person seems to get stuck when they are talking and no sound comes
out. Some examples are as follows: “I-I-I-I-I want to go now.” “Muh-muh-muh-maybe?” “Ssssssam said
we can take one.” “He can’t hhhhhhave that.” “[block with no sound] when are we going?” “But, I
asked [block with no sound] Tom to come with me.” Sometimes, when a person stutters, they also
show other behaviors such as looking away from the listener or visible facial or body tension. At times,
people who stutter actually avoid talking or avoid some situations in which they believe they will have to
talk.
We don’t know why some children seem to stop stuttering without help and some don’t. We
also cannot be certain which children will recover without speech therapy and which children
won’t. However, there are some indicators that help us predict whether a given child may be at
risk for their being challenged by ongoing stuttering.
If your child is stuttering, you may wish to consider some factors that indicate your child may
need therapy to help them. For instance, if your child has been stuttering for over 6 months,
they become less likely to stop the stuttering without help. If your child has stuttered for 12-24
months, they are even less likely to outgrow stuttering. If others in your child’s biological family
stutter, your child may be less likely to outgrow stuttering without therapy. Also, stuttering is
more prevalent in boys than in girls, so it is more likely for your son’s speech disfluencies to
develop into stuttering than the speech of your daughter.
If you are worried about your child’s speech disfluencies and suspect they may be stuttering,
you can contact the speech-language pathologist in your child’s school or through the school
district early childhood offices. It is important to speak with the speech-language pathologist
and explain your concern. Once you speak to the staff member, if it appears your child may be
at risk for stuttering, you and your child can participate in a speech-language evaluation. This
will be a thorough test in which the speech-language pathologist listens to your child’s speech
and gets more information from you and your family about your child’s communication. If your
child is already enrolled in school, information about their communication in class will also be
used in the evaluation. As a part of the evaluation, the option of speech therapy will be
considered. If your child does not appear to be at risk for stuttering at this time, suggestions
may be provided to you but no speech therapy will be recommended. In the state of
Minnesota, if your child shows stuttering on at least 5% of words and appears at risk for
stuttering, speech therapy will be recommended. Speech-language evaluation and therapy
services are provided to children who are eligible for them at no charge to parents through the
special education program in the state of Minnesota.
What can you do to help your child?
As mentioned before, parents do not cause stuttering, however there are some things families can do to
help. Families can help their children with speech fluency whether or not the children have
speech therapy from the schools.
1. Most important, support your child’s communication. Do your best to show your child how
much you like them talking. Focus on the content of your child’s message and not on the
presence or absence of stuttering when they talk. Stuttering can cycle. Sometimes it seems to
be worse and sometimes it seems almost to go away. Especially at first, your child may have
little ability to manage the stuttering. The top goal is always to keep your child talking and
feeling successful communicating.
2. If your Speech-Language Pathologist has a specific home therapy program tailored to your
child’s needs, participate fully in that. Your time with your child can have the greatest impact
on your child’s communication development.
3.Change your speech. When speaking with your child, work on reducing your own rate of
speech, through adding pauses. [INTERPRETER: AS YOU SAY THE NEXT SENTENCE, PAUSE
BETWEEN PHRASES AT NATURAL BREAKS AND USE SLOWER THAN AVERAGE RATE] For
example//, when your child// speaks to you//, you might// count to two// in your head// before
responding// to create// that slower// communication pace.
Also, you can help your child by reducing the grammatical complexity and the number of words
in your utterances. For example, if you were talking with your child in the following manner,
you could simplify a complex sentence like the one that follows by breaking it into several short
sentences: “After we go to visit your aunt and uncle, we will come home and clean the house
because we will be hosting a party tomorrow.” That statement might be simplified by breaking
the information up into separate sentences in the following way: “Now, we’ll go visit your aunt
and uncle. When we come home, we’ll clean house. We have to clean house. We will have a
party here tomorrow.”
Children who are at risk for stuttering do NOT characteristically have delayed language
development. Instead, they tend to show average to advanced language skills. It appears that
those advanced language abilities may actually be making them tend to speak with greater
sentence length and complexity than their speech motor systems may be ready for. If you
model easier, more simple sentences at a slower rate, that can change their own expectations
for their speech, helping them slow and simplify their own. This can lead to increased fluency.
4. Decrease time pressure. Parents with young children are busy! Find ways each day to
decrease the number of activities, slow down the rate of activity, and/or slow the rate of
transitions between activities to help the atmosphere to seem less rushed.
Because none of us can change our whole way of living to eliminate time/communication
pressure, it might work for your family to set aside focused attention times each day for your
children. For example, have one parent sit and play one-to-one with your child in 5 minute
sessions. In each session, deadlines, phones, and hurry are set aside and your child has your
undivided attention as you let them lead in play with a favorite toy or retelling of a favorite
story. Watch your own interaction style and your child’s response to you. If you ask fewer
questions, does that help your child talk more fluently? If your child gets to direct the play,
does that appear to result in increased speech fluency? If possible, make time for that focused,
unrushed, child-centered 5-minute session 3-5 days every week. (This suggestion is based on a
very successful treatment program used at the Palin Centre in London.)