Stuttering in kids

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
Hi all, My 26 month old son has just started stuttering a few days ago and it seems to be getting worse everyday. Does anyone have any experiences with this? I've read that it sometimes goes away on it's own but also that early intervention is best. I'd appreciate any advise or experiences that people have to share. Thanks in advance, Maria

2
Any speech defects usually get picked up at Kindergarten when the speech therapist visits.

They take this very seriously and will provide one-to-one support for your child and exercises they can practise.

But that's a couple of years away at least.

For now, I'm sure someone else has some helpful advice.

3
How long has he been talking before starting to stutter? Does he talk very fast? Maybe he's just very excited about suddenly being able to express himself. Make him slow down a little if he's talking very fast. I have experienced it a couple of times that children suddenly want to talk a lot and then they start making "mistakes" like swallowing letters / repeating everything or stutter. I would try not to panic as it could make matters worse if he realised that what he does is somehow not "right". But I am sorry I am no expert on this field. Maybe it will make you feel easier if you talk about it with your paediatrician.

4
I agree with irish_temptation. I think all kids fluff up their speech at that age, especially when they are excited or nervous or upset or even just tired.

He's still learning to form words and sentences and is probably still experimenting and developing ways of expressing himself.

See how it goes for a few months but see your paedatrician if you are worried.

5
I've no idea how good this site is, but Google turns up, among many other things - Stuttering in Children - which might be worth reading.

6
Hi there, my partners niece started stuttering a little while back (3 years), they don't know exactly what caused it, but a few days before she had an incident in the park with some kids who just kept telling her over and over to shut up.

It's still going on after 4 months and her parents are really upset over it. I think the best thing to do is what Longbyt said above and do some research yourself. My s-i-l went to see a speech therapist who told her for the moment the best thing to do is let it run and not to tell her to take her time, not to finish her sentences for her, or assume what she wants. In my opinion (which is not professional), I think this is to let her work it out herself and she will realise she doesn't need to rush to get things out, and other people don't take all the time to say something.

I just remembered another that the speech therapist recommended was not to ntroduce to many new things in her life at this point. For example, books and toys.

As advice for you, try not to worry. Little ones have so much to say, and they're only just learning how to get it out... Sometimes, when I'm excited about something, I can't get all my words out. I think it's something you train yourself at; taking a breath, organising everything you have to say and then saying it!

Please keep us updated if you can, it's nice for others who may be in the same situation one day.

Hope this helps

7
My son, who is about the same age as your child, also suddenly developed a stutter, and a very bad one. I ignored it completely and after a few weeks it got better. It isn't gone, but it's much better and his vocab took a leap too. I almost had the feeling he was so excited to talk that he got ahead of himself and couldn't get it out.

At the same time I noticed that my husband and I, were using mm-hmm, and these sort of responses far too much. We worked on decreasing that and using 'show me what you mean' instead. My son has three languages on a fairly regular basis, so it can be really hard to figure out what he wants to say sometimes.

I also noticed after the vocab leap that he was much more clear about who spoke which language, and will now switch according to the recipient.

8
My older son started stuttering in early kindergaten (around 4 years old) and it got pretty bad at times. At school he got private lessons (1-2 hours a week) for his suttering and lack of German. I think the school was willing to take the costs if additional help was needed also, which we were grateful for, but never took them up on it. Now my son is 8 and does not stutter any more and is getting good grades in German.

In short, these things can come & go very easily at an early age. The most important thing is not to make him acutely aware of it. Just tell him to slow down and take it easy. They are dealing with very rapid growth at that age and get overwhelmed sometimes. My kid was dealing with not only english and russian at home, but then had to deal with german and swiss-german at school, i think i would start stuttering too

9
I would ask your paediatrician for advice. From the information I have gleaned (my son also stutters) there is always a reason for a stutter and, in our son's case, it coincided with a linguistic developmental delay which has impacted on his school work. Someone else has already mentioned that it will be picked up in Kindergarten and the school has to provide you with speech therapy if it is required (if you have to pay privately it is very expensive).

Our son's stutter is classified as "fluent" which means that he stumbles over his words as he is thinking faster than he is able to speak. His type of stutter should disappear with age and more confidence in the language and in himself. However, he has times when it goes and times when it comes back with a vengeance. He is now aged 12 (he began stuttering at age 8) and he is embarrassed by it and it does have a negative impact on his life.

My intention is not to alarm you, but I wish I had checked my son's speech problem out sooner and would therfore advise you to talk to your paediatrician about it, who will, I am sure, put your mind at rest.