XPost: Speech/Stuttering Help please!

[momto3innc]

I've got some concerns with my middle son's speech and would love some input.

Both of our boys have had some issues with speech since they were younger, but this son has typically been the "easy" one regarding speech.  He says all sounds correctly, never had trouble with that.  His only trouble  for the most part has been that he speaks super fast and kind of smushes his words together.  Speech therapists have really never been concerned.  They've just said his brain is working fast than his mouth and he's just trying to get it all out quickly. 

 

He's now 8.5 and we started back to speech this spring, more for our other son than for this one, but we wanted to work on his speed/articulation a little more because it was not getting better and he's getting older.  When we did his evaluation, it was fine and the speech therapist thought giving some focus to it for the summer would probably be very helpful.  The speech therapist is great.  Super nice, and the boys enjoy her.  They both don't mind going or doing their homework stuff with me during the week.  So my middle son has been having therapy for probably 2 months when about 10 days ago or so, he started stuttering.  A lot. Whole words or phrases, not just sounds, mainly at the beginning of a sentence.  It generally is accompanied by facial grimacing/closing his eyes as he's trying to get the words/phrases out.  He has stuttered a little in the past, a little more when he was 3 or so (even then not a lot and we did speech back then too) but it went away as he got older.  He would stutter maybe once every few weeks or months just slightly if he were excited, but no grimacing or blinking. 

 

This is different.  It's many, many times a day.  He says he is frustrated he can't get it out.  We have not had anything unusual happen in the last few weeks.  It's been a normal summer with lots of sleeping in/pool/playing with friends/etc...  When we went to speech last week, the speech therapist definitely noticed the difference.  She recommended quietly placing a hand on his arm to remind him to stop, take a breath, think about what he wanted to say, and starting over.  He does generally do better if he does this, but not always.  And he does it so often, I feel bad stopping him all the time.  And he does not like to be stopped.  I made an appt. for the pediatrician this week...can you think of anything medical this could be? 

 

We are trying to be very calm about this with him.  We don't want him to think we're worried about it (though we are!!).  Has anyone had anything like this happen?  Thoughts, ideas?  Things I should be thinking about?

 

Thanks!

[merry gardens]

I wonder if he's grown more concerned and self conscious about his speech since seeing the slp and if this stuttering is possibly due to anxiety. ??? That's just my thoughts based on my limited experience.

[Jennifer-72]

Stuttering is always about access to language. If the slp has been working on slowing him down and his language formulation it could be causing him some trouble. Mainly because he probably has developed some coping techniques to work around the stuttering and those have been altered a bit by what the slp is doing. I would let your slp know what is happening and back off doing any of the homework and see if it settles down. Also, you probably already know this but just make no mention of it to him or tell him to take his time etc. just do the usual attentive listening and also try modelling much slower pace of speech yourself.

 

We did have something similar happen to ds when he was around 7. I had just started him in speech arts and the instructor was working on slowing him down and all of the sudden he started stuttering when he had never done so previously. Our slp worked on it with ds for a couple sessions and then after about 6 weeks or so it just went away.

[Jennifer-72]

Oh I see I should have read your post more closely! Sorry about that...

 

Our slp had us practice smooth, slow speech once or twice a day for about 15 min a time. We started the sessions by having ds tense up into a ball and then melt. Then we just used some wordless picture books and ds and I would alternate telling the story. The language task was to be something that was to be relatively easy for ds and to build his confidence with using slow, smooth speech instead of bumpy speech. Outside of those short sessions we didn't focus on his speech at all.

 

I would definitely talk to your slp again and let her know how frustrated he is by the problem. That is a huge indicator that he needs more tools to deal with this. Our slp was very adamant in how important it is to bring down frustration around speech.