If your child stutters- how did it start?

[Hilltopmom]

Dd, age 4.5, is experiencing disfluencies that seemed typical at first- saying mommy, mommy, mommy before getting the rest of the sentence out. Over two months she has progressed to barely being able to get words out. She still has full word repetitions, not partial so she says mommy x3 not, m-m-m mommy, but she may say “mommy†at the beginning of the sentence 6x then “I want†3 x then “mommy†a few times again, then get the rest of the sentence out.

It was occasionally at first and now it’s almost every sentence. At preschool she is unable to get a sentence out to answer a question. She is resorting to one word utterances like “hungry†whereas before she would use long clear sentences. And she’s giving up in the middle and just not saying anything so it’s obviously frustrating her.

Last night she said “mommy please can you help me talk?†But it took her at least a minute to say it. She is also mispronouncing things she used to say clearly.

I know stuttering can be developmental but I am sorta freaking out now that it’s gotten so severe so quickly.

I work in special ed so she’s getting an eval asap and her ped is likely sending her to neuro just in case something else is going on because the quick change is alarming.

Any BTDT advice for me?

I know a ton of speech therapists so services won’t be hard to access I’m just concerned and so are they.

Edited March 1, 2018 by Hilltopmom

[HSmomof2]

Both dd and ds stuttered, it runs in dh’s family. Ds started at age 3. Dd’s stutter came on rather suddenly at age 10 leading to an MRI and neurologist referral.(It was just a late-onset stutter.) Both had about 1year of speech therapy and speak fluently now with no trace of a stutter left.

[IvyInFlorida]

My now 3 1/2 yo son stuttered for about 6 months starting about 2 1/2.  It was really obvious with him that his brain was revving along waaaaay to fast for his lips/tongue, etc.  It started mildly and progressed big time.  A speech pathologist at church encouraged us to make sure we didn't rush or pressure him while speaking, and to model slow speech.  He dropped the stutter with no further intervention.