Stuttering

[NewIma]

My dear dd is 10 and I've been aware for a while (1 year maybe?) that she has a hard time getting words out sometimes. My dh said I was overreacting and so we shelved the discussion. Then my sil asked me last month how long dd has been stuttering and all of a sudden it had a name that made sense. It sounds crazy but we had never made that connection before to an actual condition. So now I'm not sure where to start. From my reading it looks like this is really a life long condition even with therapy and of course early intervention is better so I feel like I have completely failed her because we figure it out so  late. I guess I don't have a specific question, but am looking for encouragement. advice, and resource recommendations. Thank you for your help. 

[Ottakee]

Is this a new thing for her? Many times stuttering starts between 3-5. If it is new it might be worth a visit to the doctor. My daughter's stuttering is related to her seizures.

[Rosie_0801]

Stuttering can be a stress reaction. I'm not sure it can't also be a puberty rewiring issue.

[PinkTulip]

My 17 yo son had a pretty severe stutter when he was little. When he was about 6, we took him to speech therapy for about a year, and now you would never know it was ever an issue - his speech is perfectly smooth and fluid. I don't think 10 is too old to work on it - if I remember, I think they said 12-ish is kind of the point where it's harder to remedy.

 

Also, speech therapists in my area were really expensive, so we ended up going to a clinic at our local university that was run by their masters degree seeking students. It was good practice for the students, they used the latest methods for my son, and was about a quarter of the price of anywhere else. Therapy was fun for my son, they would play games and get him talking about anything, and then do silly things like "stretchy-speech" and stuff. It was a really positive experience for us.

 

Edited for spelling

Edited May 8, 2017 by PinkTulip

[gardenmom5]

My dear dd is 10 and I've been aware for a while (1 year maybe?) that she has a hard time getting words out sometimes. My dh said I was overreacting and so we shelved the discussion. Then my sil asked me last month how long dd has been stuttering and all of a sudden it had a name that made sense. It sounds crazy but we had never made that connection before to an actual condition. So now I'm not sure where to start. From my reading it looks like this is really a life long condition even with therapy and of course early intervention is better so I feel like I have completely failed her because we figure it out so  late. I guess I don't have a specific question, but am looking for encouragement. advice, and resource recommendations. Thank you for your help. 

 

it doesn't have to be lifelong.  Annie Glenn (wife of John Glenn) was  disabled by stuttering, even in private.  she did an intense program and completely overcame it.  she spent the rest of her life working for groups that help stutterers.

 

I would start with a SLP.

[J-rap]

It's never too late to help stuttering, and speech therapy can really help you overcome it.  It isn't always lifelong.

[gardenmom5]

james earl jones was a stutterer.  he got into acting after he learned when he recited something - he could do so without stuttering because he knew what he was supposed to say - and didn't have to "think" about it.

[nixpix5]

Speech therapy is incredibly helpful for disfluency. Is her disfluent speech only at the beginning of the sentence and then once she gets going it is smooth? Or is it occurring across words in a sentence (i.e. are words mid sentence also disfluent)? How long have you noticed it? As someone else mentioned, it typically starts between 3-5 onset but is often self corrects when the disfluency is just at the beginning of a sentence. This is often due to having a faster thought process and motorically the mouth has not caught up with all the child wants to say. Disfluency that occurs within a sentence often has different origins. It can be due to several things but speech therapy is often necessary to correct it or make it manageable.

[Pink and Green Mom]

My son used to stutter - a lot.  He had some speech therapy and that as well as time helped it go away.  I cannot remember the last time he stuttered.

 

One thing the therapist did was get him to slow down when speaking, and realize that it is ok to take a breath before answering, or to say "I need a minute to think about that" rather than stammering and stuttering (he had a language processing issue as well).  I realize not all stuttering is caused by this but in our situation this strategy and time saw him grow out of it.

[kwg]

We had speech therapy for my ds - we called the local school and he was tested and went there twice a week at first then down to once a week. The most helpful thing we did was go to the university speech and hearing clinic for their summer program. I really got a lot out of that! If ds started to stutter again, that is where I would go first. FIL stuttered into his 20s but then got a handle on it later in life.

 

 

[NewIma]

Thank you so much for your responses. I reached out to someone who struggles with stuttering and who knew dd from age 6-8 and he told me he noticed that she stuttered then. So apparently this isn't new-we have just been clueless.  She stutters both at the beginning and in the middle of sentences. He suggested that we try to get therapy though the school system because they have more experience working with stuttering as compared to a independent therapist who might work more with adults who have had strokes etc. What did you guys do? Do you go to a practice or through the school system? 

[AK_Mom4]

DD23 stuttered in elementary school, but it became very noticeable about 5th grade (around your daughter's age I think?). Her stutter is related or her ADD and it got bad when her coping mechanisms in school couldn't keep up.

 

Our local elementary had a wonderful speech therapist who worked with DD two days a week on speech planning and some other techniques. It took about six months for DD to get it back under control. These days, DD23 is a music teacher talking all day long and does just fine.

 

Message - no it's not too late. Yes there can be good speech services in public schools. And if I couldn't have got her in with the public school therapist, I would have found a pediatric SLP for DD. They work with kids from birth to age 18 here.

[hellen]

My son used to stutter - a lot. He had some speech therapy and that as well as time helped it go away. I cannot remember the last time he stuttered.

The same thing happened here. My son stuttered horribly. He went to a wonderful speech therapist. I'm not sure he used any of the techniques he learned. The stuttering just faded.

[Plink]

DS used to stutter. For him, getting his allergies and asthma under control flipped a switch and allowed him to speak more clearly.

 

It is absolutely worth remediation. Talk with his doctor, talk with the school, talk with private speech therapists. All of them will have different pieces of the puzzle. Decide after the initial consults where you think your time will be best spent, and jump in there. You can always change your mind and try something else later on.

[gingersmom]

Thank you so much for your responses. I reached out to someone who struggles with stuttering and who knew dd from age 6-8 and he told me he noticed that she stuttered then. So apparently this isn't new-we have just been clueless. She stutters both at the beginning and in the middle of sentences. He suggested that we try to get therapy though the school system because they have more experience working with stuttering as compared to a independent therapist who might work more with adults who have had strokes etc. What did you guys do? Do you go to a practice or through the school system?

You want a therapist who works with children, not adults.

 

Speech services at our public school were useless, we went with private.

[Liz CA]

it doesn't have to be lifelong.  Annie Glenn (wife of John Glenn) was  disabled by stuttering, even in private.  she did an intense program and completely overcame it.  she spent the rest of her life working for groups that help stutterers.

 

I would start with a SLP.

 

They mentioned this in the movie "The Right Stuff" and I love the scene where Glenn tells his wife to just lock the doors if the reporters want to talk to her. She was in a panic because she had kept in the background because of her stuttering. Then he assured her he would be dealing with them. The real John Glenn seems like the kind of man who may have said exactly that.

And how encouraging to know that even in her fifties they were able to help her immensely.

 

[HSmomof2]

Dd started to stutter at age 10. There is a family history of stuttering. She was initially sent to a neurologist to rule out other causes, but it ended up being late onset stutter. She had speech therapy for about a year (through our local Children's hospital therapy dept). Her speech has improved a great deal, and she feels more confident and less self-conscious speaking. I would absolutely see your dr and get a speech eval.

[Misha]

My stutter started at age 10 also. I went to speech therapy and I practiced a lot on my own and it went away within 18 months, I believe. It comes out occasionally still if I'm really anxious. 

 

I was extremely self conscious about it. 

[Audrey]

It doesn't necessarily mean it will be a lifelong problem. I stuttered as a child so badly I couldn't say my own name.  Today, you would not be able to tell that I ever stuttered.  My son has a stutter that has improved greatly, and only now shows up if he's very rushed or over-excited to speak.  We are both very aware when we do speak and employ techniques to be able to speak easily.  For me, it is like second-nature.  Ds is still on the learning curve. 

 

For both of us, music helped greatly.  For me specifically, it was my mother who noticed I never stuttered at all when I was singing.  She picked up on that and would sing what she wanted to say to me, to encourage me to respond to her by singing what I wanted to say.  Later, I became involved in musical theatre and theatre which helped even more.  Today, I give speeches and presentations on a very regular basis. People tell me all the time that I have a lovely speaking voice.  I think it is because my speech employs a lot of musicality, which many people wouldn't recognize as such to be able to state that, but which, intuitively, they understand as melody.   My son uses music similarly, but rap music, which didn't exist when I was a child, has been a better therapy for him.  

[GoodGrief]

My oldest stutters. Hers started at about age 3, and is definitely anxiety related. It's not always obvious, because it comes and goes, depending on how anxious she is. Speech therapy can be a useful tool for helping get through the times when the dysfluency is disruptive.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Gr8lander