Noticing The Stuttering
Your kiddo is entering the fabled “terrible twos,” and you don’t really understand where the term comes from. At least, you don’t think it applies to your kiddo. For the most part she is a joy to behold, so good and calm and easy. And boy does she love to talk! It seems like every day she’s learning a new word and she is talking up a storm.
The only time she loses her cool is when she talks and she keeps saying the same syllable before she can get the word out, or she says the same words more than once. Or even worse, she almost goes blue in the face before she can get the word out. That’s when she gets mad and she throws one of her very few tantrums.
Now that you’re actually paying attention, the stumbling over a word or repeating a word seems to happen a lot. You’re getting worried. Does your kiddo have a stuttering problem?
Facts About Stuttering
Here are some facts. About 5% of kids between the ages of two and six will stutter. The natural curiosity for knowledge and desire to share that knowledge leads to speech they will often stumble and stammer over. Another important fact is that, out of the 5% of kids who stutter, about 80% will outgrow their stutter. By the time they leave preschool behind there’s a good chance they will leave stuttering behind as well. If you wait a few more years, your kiddo may stop stuttering all on her own. But that’s not always the case.
Types Of Stuttering
There are many types of stuttering. Some examples are:
-Sound or syllable repetition: (h/h/he) or (Wha/wha/what)
-Whole word repetitions: saying a word more than one time (Dog/dog/dog)
-Multiple word repetitions: saying more than one word more than one time (He is/he is/he is)
-Prolongations: Getting stuck on the first sound of a word for a few seconds (Sssssssnake)
-Blocks: Getting stuck when the first sound of a word won’t come out ( _____Two)
-Insertions: adding extra sounds in the middle of your sentences (Um or uh)
How A Stutter Becomes A Stutter
Everyone has disfluencies (which is another word for stuttering). Insertions is a great example. Many people add “uh” or “you know” or “like,” to their everyday conversation. A true stutter depends on two conditions: the percentage of stuttering versus normal speech, and the severity and the number of disfluencies. For example, a kiddo who experiences real disfluency will stutter a lot of the time when she speaks. On top of that, she will suffer not just one but several types of disfluencies, the ones that are uncommon. It really takes a lot of different factors to come together for your child to be diagnosed with a true stutter.
More To Come
Don’t despair. The next few blogs will be about the next steps to take when you know your kiddo stutters, and after that, resources you can take advantage of in and out of the home. Another reason why you should be hopeful is because there are quite a few examples of people who stuttered and were able to overcome their stutter.
Overcomer
One specific example is the man who said one of the most famous lines ever in movie history: “Luke, I am your father.” That’s right, James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, King Mufasa from the Lion King, and many other movies, had a terrible stutter well into his teens. But if he was able to control his stutter to become one of the most celebrated voice actors of all time, your kiddo has a great chance to master her stutter (if she has one) as well.