Treating stutter? Or not?

[madteaparty]

Asking for a family member. Both parents stuttered as children, one even as a young adult, none got treatment, it went away. Both parents can and do public speaking now with no issues.

same family, both children, age difference 5 years have stutters, which present differently according to my ear as an outsider. I believe the eldest has stuttered before, it comes and goes. Youngest seems to have just started at age 6. Parents aren’t sure whether to look for treatment since neither did. I can’t advise them either (not that they’re asking) since I’m of a low intervention worldview anyway. But I’m curious now if there is research on this—does stutter go away? Or does it need treatment?

[HomeAgain]

Mine went away.

Mine went away because it was stress related and I found methods of self-calming and relaxing, plus many opportunities from loving teachers to do oral presentations in ways that I was comfortable (like learning how to do storytelling or theatre, where I could be someone else).  Mine returns when I am highly stressed or upset and forget to focus on speech.  The effects of a stutter (and lisp)  linger: I'm more comfortable with texts or in person conversations where my hands can talk as well.  I was well into my twenties before I went through a drive thru to order food.  I'd definitely get a child in for treatment or an evaluation to help stem that self-consciousness.

[mumto2]

No experience with a stutter but both Dh and I saw speech therapists through our schools as children and hugely disliked the experience.  I actually quit rather spectacularly on my own......my parents backed me up! 🥰 We were both in agreement not to send Ds, never even considered it.  His letters were a combo of ours.which we found interesting....he self corrected over time and has no embarrassment at all.  For that matter neither does Dh, give the guy a group and he is happy speaking.  I used to speak to large groups frequently and have gotten out of the habit.  I do have nerves about it now and am afraid that no one will understand me but I also have the lack of the local accent.......not sure if I would have had anxiety reappear if I had stayed in the Midwest.  😉

One of the dc’s friend’s stutters.  According to them he has spent a whole lot of time with speech therapists during his childhood.  He is in his early 20’s and we have known him roughly 6 years.  When we first knew him it was frequent, now it only under stress.  Unfortunately his career desires require public speaking so we will see how it goes.  At the same time he is willingly steering himself towards a career that requires a great deal of public speaking so his self confidence is just fine.

[Storygirl]

No direct experience, but I had an adult friend who stuttered severely. He sought therapy for himself and even attended some week-long intensive sessions during his vacation time. He felt they helped him. He had a very difficult young childhood, and I'm sure that he would have wished to have been offered help when he was a child.

I think it depends upon the severity, as well. My friend could not get through a single sentence without stuttering, and it sometimes took him three or four times as long to say something as would be typical. The listener had to be very patient. Someone with just a slight and occasional stutter would have more options about whether to treat it or not.

[geodob]

Bringing the stuttering to a child's attention, can often make it worse?
 

 

[J-rap]

I can't quite tell how old the kids are.  

If they're 6/7/8, I'd wait it out.  I'd work with them, as a parent (not by bringing up the stutter), but on having relaxed, slow conversations.  Parents can model it.  Sometimes an internal, mostly subconscious feeling of thinking you need to talk fast in order to be heard can make it worse.  I think being acutely aware of it at a young age can make it worse too.

If kids are older -- middle school/high school, then it is becoming more "set" and I'd probably offer therapy.  Therapy has improved a lot over the years.  I think it can be really helpful.

 

 

[cintinative]

My oldest had an issue with stuttering at age 4 and 5. For him it was a repeating form "I want want want want to go go go go to the the the zoo zoo zoo."  We did not have the blocking. It was most definitely worse when he was excited, especially around Christmas. We had him in preschool at a church and they had a group come out and evaluate the kids' speech. They recommended speech therapy for him due to the high amount of disfluency. One of the other moms at the preschool happened to be a speech therapist and our boys were friends, so she was a natural choice.  We had a great experience with the therapy and it did help.  He will still stuttering at age 6 but I don't notice it anymore. 

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that speech issues are better addressed young, and that the longer you wait to address them, the harder they become to remediate. These resources might be helpful. https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/stuttering/#help  https://www.stutteringhelp.org/if-you-think-your-child-stuttering

There are some interesting stats on the stuttering foundation site about how having a parent who stuttered as a child makes their children more likely to stutter, how long it takes to remediate on its own if it does, and about how girls are more likely to experience correction on their own, etc. 

I have a friend who has five children. Her son (2nd born) was having the repeating issue my son had and then her next youngest (also a boy) started doing the same. Their girl (now the fourth child, then the youngest) then started with the same disfluency. They were probably 6, 4, and 3.  I am not sure if the younger ones were mimicking the older or if they all had some sort of predisposition. The last I heard they were all receiving speech therapy.  

Edited February 17, 2019 by cintinative

[May]

I would probably make an appointment to get it evaluated by a SLP and go from there. 

[Farrar]

I'd probably wait. However, if the child specifically asked for help, regardless of age, I'd get an eval and see an SLP.

[Tanaqui]

Many children outgrow stutters without any help at all. But it doesn't do any harm to consult with a specialist, if only to see what the options are.

[Guest]

Be aware that it is HARD to find a speech therapist who is comfortable with and good with teens/adults vs either little kids or senior citizens.  I am pretty convinced that in college, my school was willing to include speech therapy for me not because it was really all that hekpful for me, but so their grad students actually had an adult to work with. (I have dyspraxia, which expresses itself as both a severe articulation disorder and blocking/cluttering of speech-I am still considered to have a severe speech disability, although most people think I have an accent unless they hear me under severe stress or on a really bad day). Especially for stuttering (where it is often seen as a disorder of young children), it is likely that it would be hard to find someone who could remediate later on without making a teen feel uncomfortable. 

For me, theater classes and learning to speak as a character and changing my voice to match did a lot to help my speech-basically, it taught me to work around that part of my brain. I know there is a theater program in the summer here specifically designed for older kids/teens  who stutter that I think works on the same idea.