Berkeley Parents Network: Stuttering

Berkeley Parents Network

Stuttering

Berkeley Parents Network > Advice > Worries Big & Little > Stuttering

2-1/2 year old starting stuttering about a month ago
2-year-old has suddenly begun stuttering
3-year-old stuttering

2-1/2 year old starting stuttering about a month ago

May 2004

My daughter is 2-1/2 and starting stuttering about a month ago. She doesn't seem distressed about it, but it concerns us. Our doctor and the books I have read have said that this is common in 2-3 year olds and it may last a few months. We are doing our best to ignore it and not help her finish her sentences. Anyone had experience with this? Anon

My son stuttered from around age 2.5 to around age 3.5. Everyone kept telling me it was OK and not to worry, but I did anyway. They were right. He did grow out of it on his own. It was pretty scary for me though. I had a hard time accepting that I had to let him develop on his own.

I am a teacher and consulted with the school speech therapist because I didn't believe the pediatrician. Her advice was to slow down my own speech. She said that probably the reason our son was stuttering was that our family's speed of speech was too fast for him. I guess it is pretty common for kids' brains to work faster than their mouths, and if they are rushing to get it all out they end up stuttering. She suggested that I slow myself down. I did notice that if I spoke more deliberately (slow enough that there was a space between words, but not so slow I sounded fake) and maintained eye contact with him while talking, then he had an easier time getting his words out. It also helped for us to institute ''my turn, your turn'' talking periods (a few minutes each) at dinner. When it was our turn he couldn't interrupt, and when it was his turn we couldn't interrupt. The speech therapist said that it was better to wait to determine if it was a problem until after he was in pre-school and was interacting with more small children on a regular basis. She thought that would help him, and would also give me a more reliable measure of what ''normal'' is... she was right. He started preschool around 3.5 and I noticed that his speech wasn't as bad as I had feared. There are defintiely some kids who speak more clearly(usually girls,) but he is about in the middle. His vocabulary is fine, and the stuttering is gone.

Looking back, the stuttering seemed to go through phases... sometimes he didn't stutter for days, then all of a sudden it was aweful again. Eventually, it did just go away. Doing research on the web can be scary. Some sites recommend waiting, but others want you to just jump right on it and get therapy... The rhetoric reminds me a lot of the ''What to Expect...'' series... ''it could be perfectly normal, but can also be the sign of something serious...'' not exactly the kind of reassuring message a parent wants to hear. Give you kid some time... it probably is perfectly normal. mother of a former stutterer

Our son began some serious stuttering at about 2.25 yrs, and we worried, talked to friends, family and doctors, read books - pretty much the same actiions every parent takes when confronted with this issue. Almost all of the advice was in agreement: kids this age have a fast- moving brain that just can't wait for the words. Ignore the stutter so that the kid doesn't feel bad about it [or feel like there's something abnormal] and eventually most kids will catch their words up to their thoughts. Our son stopped stuttering about 9 months later. He's amazingly verbal and quite clear for a 3 year old. It's a difficult few months when you're just not sure, but 9 times out of 10, it will pass. Jean

I would not worry about the stuttering. My now 3-year-old son began stuttering at just that age. For awhile it was quite extreme, sometimes we had to wait up to a minute for him to get a word out. Our pediatrician gave us the good advice to not make a big deal out of it, be impatient, or try to finish his sentences, etc. And sure enough, it is gone now. Occasionally it will re-occur in a minor way, but I do think it is true that they just have stages where their speech has not caught up with how fast their little brains are going. Also, it may make you feel better to know that our pediatrician said this often happens with especially intelligent children! Heather

This is very common for kids of this age. She is much too young to even notice that she's stuttering. She's just trying to get all her big ideas out at once.

Just listen to her patiently, as long as it takes, and she'll very likely get over it quite soon. If she doesn't, then count it as good training for the future, because listening patiently is always the right thing to do. mom of older stutterer

2-year-old has suddenly begun stuttering

June 2001

Our two year old started stuttering all of a sudden about 5 days ago. It's hard to tell if he's doing it for fun or if he's really having trouble speaking. He seems to get stuck on a whole word rather than a single consonant. He repeats the word 10 or even 20 times before getting on with the rest of the sentence. So far the strategy has been not to comment on it and see if he'll just stop. Has this happened with anyone else? Did your child grow out of it or stop? Do we need to look into speech therapy?

Our two and a half year old son has had periods of stuttering on and off for many months, of a very similar nature, getting stuck on one word over and over before he can move onto the rest of the sentence. Our pediatrician told us not to worry and gave us some very helpful medical literature (which I can unfortunately not cite) about the difference between developmentally normal stuttering and speech impediments. This is apparently quite common and is the result, essentially, of being able to think faster than one can produce words; in the mismatch, some language gets "stuck". We've noticed that it seems to come in waves, often right as he's having a linguistic growth spurt and his sentences are moving to a new level of complexity. Then it will cool off for a while. The advice we got was just to wait it out, to not draw attention to it (which would foster self-consciousness) and to not finish his sentences for him or offer the next word; we just wait patiently for the 10 or 20 repetitions until he can move on and finish his sentence, and then respond just as we would had he not stuttered. Things seem to be going fine. Good luck! Kirsten

I have been told by people in the field that it is not uncommon for children to pass through a brief phase of stuttering around age 2. It may be a result of a rapid development in conceptual knowledge and a need to communicate that knowledge without the requisite vocabulary skills. I think your approach of not making a big deal out of it is a good one. Incidentally, I just read an article about a study conducted several decades ago ("The Monster Study") which sought to prove that stuttering could be environmentally induced by calling attention to and repeatedly correcting children's speech errors. Indeed, the researchers created enduring stutters by doing this with a group of orphans. So I'd say this is more evidence that you should just be patient with your child and let him work through this on his own. Alisa

Our now 4-year old daughter went through a period of stuttering around 2. It lasted for a while with various degrees of severity. Our wonderful pediatrician at the time assured us that it is a normal developmental stage. Essentially, the child's cognitive development is slightly ahead of his/her speech development. In other words, they can't get the words out fast enough! She also told us to be patient, try not to finish her words and not to comment on the stuttering. I don't know how long the experts would tell you to wait before assuming there is a problem, but I do remember that it went on for a while (off and on for several months?)She outgrew it and has never stuttered since. Hope that helps, good luck. jill

I am not a medical professional, so of course I don't know if your child's behavior might indicate an actual problem. But my son started repeating words in sentences around that age as well. He has a fantastic vocabulary and no speech problems (other than pronouncing "th" as "f"). But he does LOVE attention, and one of the best ways to get your parents to hang on every word is to add that element of suspense that comes with dragging out your sentences. He's three and a half now and still occasionally repeats words when he feels people aren't listening to him. Another thing I noticed with my son was that a lot of times, when the "stuttering" happened, it was because he was talking just to be talking and had not actually planned his sentence out ahead of time. My guess would be that your child's "problem" is not a stuttering issue, but an attention-getting device normal to very vocal children. Heather

When my son was about your child's age he also began to stutter. I too wondered if this was normal. I talked with his preschool teacher and she assured me that this was quite normal. My son is now 4 years old and he has out grown stuttering. JS

Our daughter had the exact same pattern of speech about the same time. It lasted for about four months and then disappeared for the most part (she is now 3 yrs 3 mo). I don't know whether it is common, but I didn't worry because it seemed to have less to do with difficulty getting the word out, and more to do with thinking about the next thing she wanted to say. For example, she would say "Mama, the the the the the the the the the . . . . " and eventually the noun she was looking for would come out, or she would say "I can't think of what I'm trying to say" or "I can't talk!". Often this happened when she was distracted by activity in the house or just conflicting emotions. Usually sitting down at her level helped. I think it may have helped relieve any anxiety she had that I might walk away if she couldn't get the word out right away. Sometimes if she was particularly distressed that she couldn't think of the word, I would try to help her figure it out by having her point to the object or guess what she was trying to say from context. Hope this helps. Cheers. Rachel

I am not an expert on this, but my mother in law is a speech therapist for preschoolers, and tells me that it is common for young kids to stutter or have trouble getting words out when they are making cognitive leaps. Basically the idea is that they are focusing so hard on expressing a more complex thought than they have before, that in doing so, they regress on skills they already had, like articulating clearly or getting a whole sentence out smoothly. I've seen my son do this, and he eventually gets back up to where he was until the next cognitive leap comes along. Maybe this is what your child is going through too. Ann

Both my sons went through a similar phase. They would seem to go into a loop, repeating the last word spoken (or last syllable in a multi-syllabic word) endlessly before moving on. Sometimes they would instead start the sentence over and get hung up again (though not always at the same place). We tried to ignore the repetition and to listen as patiently as we could without supplying words -- a hard thing to do when you are in a hurry. In both cases, the phase passed fairly quickly. My unprofessional theory (I'm a lawyer, not a doctor or a speech pathologist) is that some children (especially kids who are articulate and have big vocabularies) have brains that work ahead of their mouths. Their thoughts are so far ahead of them that they have to repeat words as their brain resupplies words already passed by. The problem stops when their mouths catch up with their brains. Good luck. Leslie

My son started stuttering when he was around 3 years old. At the time, his peditrician said that many children also go through this and eventually grow out of it. Without going into a bunch of details, my son has indeed grown out of it. He does see a speech therapist, but not for stuttering. His stuttering stopped when my husband and I stopped putting so much emphasis on how he said things or how he pronounced his words. For speech, as in all things, children learn best by example. Perhaps you should slow down your own speech, just a tad, not so much that it no longer sounds normal but just a little. Essentially keeping on doing what you're doing. Be patient. He'll grow out of it. Nikki

Reading the other advice about stuttering, I just wanted to mention that although you should not harass a two year old about their speech, you should keep an eye (or ear) on it. My son stuttered a lot as a two year old. One piece of advice we had was to take him to a developmentally based gym program that would help him with general coordination - so that he could speak as fast as he thought. I also noticed that he was addicted to oversized gumboots and being carried about - just pulling off the boots and making him walk more reduced the stuttering a lot in a few weeks. He did continue to do it occasionally, particularly when he was excited, and would get frustrated, so at the age of five I took him to a speech therapist who checked him out for any other possible learning problems, as well as giving strategies for helping him slow down and speak more clearly. It was interesting to hear him turn on the beautifully clear speech as soon as he slowed down - he's still often in a hurry though! Once you get your ear tuned you realise that a lot of adults repeat words too. The speech therapist said that they are happy to see any children who stutter, because it's so curable at the 4-6 age and a more difficult habit to break later. She found no learning difficulties, but he did later have problems with reading and he ended up having sensory motor exercises which helped coordinate his eye movements for reading and upper body strength for balancing pencils and so forth. I have to believe that all these things were related.

Just another note - now that the kids are older we play a game in the car where each person has a turn at talking for one minute on a given topic without saying um, er, or repeating words. It's really hard, for all the kids and adults who try it! We have a little hand held tape recorder and they find it hilarious to play it back, while I find it gives them great practice at good speech. fiona

3-year-old stuttering

Jan 2005

Our 3 yr old recently seems to be stuttering when talking. Repeating the same word several times. We never noticed this before. It seemed to happen just a couple of days ago. What causes this? We are concerned.

Feb 1998

Both of our boys went through a "stuttering" phase. Our first boy was around 30 months old or so when he started and it went on for 3 or 4 months. We asked the doctor about it and he said it was very common for boys between the ages of 2 and 4 to go through this phase. He said for many, the cause is pretty simple. Their vocabulary has grown, they are learning to express themselves but their tongues cannot keep up with their brains. He suggested we just be patient, not try to hurry his speech, and not focus any attention on the stuttering. This seemed to work well. By the time he was 3, there was no trace of the stutter left.

Our second son started stuttering just before we moved. He was about 32 months when it started. After the move it got much worse. Not only did we move cities but he went from in house daycare to outside group daycare. His stuttering lasted about 6 months and although he still stutters occasionally, it is getting rare. Now it seems to be when he is trying to express a new thought or talking with new people.

From: Leah

Coincidentally, I was reading last night "Your 3 Yr-Old" by Ames & Ilg. I don't love all their solutions, but often find them right on re development. It can be very reassuring. The intro discusses some of the "insecurities" often suddenly faced by previously quite secure 3 1/2 yr-olds (or thereabouts), and some of the forms this can take. Stuttering for a while is apparently one of them: "stuttering...causes many parents undue anxiety. We ourselves tend to label stuttering at this age as mere 'preschool nonfluency' [whatever that is] and unless it prolongs itself for several months, let it go at that."

From: Natasha

Please don't worry about this phenomenon! It's completely normal for a three year old to "stutter." Our child briefly went through this phase; she'd repeat the first word of a sentence over and over, and several of her friends did too. It didn't last long, and she's now a four year old with extremely fluent speech. I would strongly recommend that you read the (short) book "Your Three-Year-Old", from the excellent series on child development by Ames and Ilg. Here's what they say:

"Stuttering, which in many comes in at this age...causes many parents undue anxiety. We ourselves tend to label stuttering at this age as mere "preschool non-fluency", and unless it prolongs itself for several months, let it go at that...

It may be calming to parents to know that it is a customary, usually quite normal stage that some children go through...Most speech specialists advise strongly not only that parents not worry about preschool stuttering, but that they not DO anything about it.

The old-fashioned notion of telling the child to "slow down and say it over," or other similar admonition, is definitely not recommended. As a rule, the less attention you pay to early stuttering, the sooner it drops out. The thing you CAN do is to be sure that you give full and good attention to whatever it may be that your child is saying. This will reduce his need to talk fast and will reduce the likelihood that he will stutter."

We just looked at this time as one in which her thoughts were running faster than her tongue!

Thanks to all of you who replied back. Your comments strengthen what his Dr. told me. His doctor gave me a 2 page copy from the book - Your Child's Health, - Does your child have a stuttering problem? Written by Barton D Schmitt, MD, it shows the problem and the solution and it does state that this occurs in about 90% of children because the child's mind is able to form words faster than the tongue can produce them.(Wheww)And it is four times more common in boys than girls. The name given to the stuttering is called " Dsyfluency or Pseduostuttering".

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