Stuttering

I hope your screen name is not some kind of a joke relating to the title of your thread.

Thank you for bringing this up.

I wonder if anyone can help me.

My 3 year old stutters. I asked a few people including a speech therapist what to do about it and they all said to ignore it and it will hopefully go away.

It is now 3 months since he started and it is not any better.

Does anyone have any suggestions what I can do?

Thanks

Mum- most 3 year olds stutter at some point. Mine did too. It went as it came. I would still wait a bit but make sure not to make a big deal of it.

I don’t know about stuttering, but I see many children who begin to blink and squeeze their eyes with no underlying reason that we can detect. Also other “tics”. In my experience they always resolve spontaneously, usually after 3-12 months.

In my opinion it is very important to not make the behavior a matter of discussion. You should act as if you do not notice. Be patient and don’t display any impatience whatsoever as your child struggles to say something.

If it continues past 6 mo or so then you might consider seeking some help.

“Many people don’t know anything about stuttering, yet how to react when they come across a stutterer.”

Would not the best reaction be no reaction? i.e. talk to the stutterer as you would anyone else? That would be my approach.

The funny thing is, I tend to finish sentences of non-stutterers and I don’t always maintain eye contact with non-stutterers either.

Both the National Stuttering Association and the American Foundation on Stuttering have valuable information on stuttering available online. Also there is a Jewish Stuttering Association in formation and information is also available online. Most children (about 90%) will outgrow stuttering; however the other 10% may go on to develop a longer term problem. It is best that children be evaluated by a licensed speech pathologist with a specialty in fluency disorders if you have concerns. Approximately 1% of the adult population stutters. The post about not completing the sentences or thoughts of someone is accurate.

Some of my most embarrassing moments occurred in my childhood, when I stuttered. One evening, I offered my younger sister’s friend a drink, and, instead of answering me, the friend said to my sister, “Why does your sister say ‘dr-dr-drink’?” I remember crying myself to sleep that night.

Thank G-d, I outgrew it by age 11.

All the stutterers I know only stutter in their primary spoken language.

The following was written by a relative who is a professional speech pathologist. It is in response to this thread and its posts. The author has a Masters in Speech and nearly a decade and a half of experience.

Dysfluencies are a fairly normal occurrence in preschool children (ages 3-5 years) due to the fact that they are still in the process of language learning.

Two red flags to be on the lookout for are:

1. Is there any muscular tension involved in the dysfluency? Is the child literally physically struggling to get the word or sound out?

2. Is the child aware of his dysfluency and does he get frustrated by it or react to it at all?

Anyone who interacts with the child regularly (parents, siblings, teachers, other relatives and friends, etc..) should be given these instructions.

Being a very patient listener is also good advice when interacting with an adult who stutters. They are quite aware of the problem and are usually extremely self conscious about it, which only feeds into the problem. Speech is supposed to flow automatically and if a person thinks about what he is doing while attempting to perform an automatic act, he tends to stumble. You need to be able to concentrate on what you want to say, not what your mouth needs to do to make the sounds come out. If a person who stutters perceives a negative reaction, that will only make it harder for him to get the words out.

The twitching is an attempt by a person who stutters to physically get himself out of the block. The problem is, it works for a while, but when the novelty wears off, the twitch is no longer effective, but it remains. A new one is then added to the repertoire with the same results. In therapy, these would need to be addressed.

Hatzlacha to all.

I stutter sometimes when i speak to people with wich i feel intimidated from, and when I have to say a story or explain something difficult. I think it has to do that i become nervous in these situations and I feel like I have to search for the correct words.

Thats the good part of the CR there is no stuttering.

BP Totty said “

I have a friend who stutters, as does several of his kids. Yet, for some reason, they do not have the problem when they read kryiah. No idea why, but its just an interesting fact.”

I can offer an explanation, from personal experience. As a child I had a terrible stutter. It was a result of my mind going at 90 miles per hour and my mouth could only go at 55 mph. In my mouth’s futile attemots to catch up, the words would collide and produce the stutter. However, when I read from a prepared text,

my mind and mouth went at the same speed, and as a result, no stutter.

I’m still a stutterer, but because of the therapy I underwent as a teenager, I learned to recognize the signs of when my mind is starting to accelerate and to learn how to get it to slow down, rather than try to have my mouth catch up. I’ll alwats be a stutterer,it just doesn’t manifest itself as much any more.

All kids with this problem should get speech therapy and support

as other kids can be cruel. What they don’t need is an aunt like mine who thought it was funny to call me a shtimma bebbick, loosely translated as “marble mouth “

lesschumros – that’s an interesting observation. b”h i never stuttered but i do tend to talk quickly. People are always complaining i talk too fast, i try to slow down but it doesn’t always help. I guess my mind doesn’t go as fast as yours causing me to stutter, which i’m quite grateful for!

. emoticon613

My mother ( she was a widow ) could not affoed it either. An English teacher in my yeshiva suggested and put me in contact with the Speech Department at Brooklyn College. The therapy was done by students, under the guidance of a licened speech therapist at very little cost.

what’s a sliding scale?