Has anyone got any experience of a child that stammers?

[gibbled]

My 3 year 7 month old DD has just started stammering out of the blue. She had good language prior to this and was fairly articulate with a reasonably good vocabulary. Then within a week she is now struggling to get a sentence out, stutters multiple times within a sentence and sometimes can't get anything out at all.

It's so upsetting to watch. She's also taken to doing a sort of high pitched squeal at the start of her sentences.

Does anyone have any knowledge or experience of stuttering? Google is not helping me feel better about it!

I'm a speech and language therapist. It may be a developmental phase. Any history of stammering in your family or her dad's family? Does she seem aware of her stammer, and does she get upset by it?

Give her extra time to talk, don't ask her to stop, slow down, take a deep breath etc. These will just make her more anxious about talking. Obviously dont allow anyone else to imitate her or make fun of her. Generally act like you're not aware of it either, but give her extra time when she needs it

My nearly 4 year old started struggling to get his word out probably about 6 months ago so a similar age. We just tried not to make a big deal of it and gave him time to finish and didn’t finish his sentences for him etc. It gradually passed. His speech and vocal is even more developed now so I wonder if it was just a developmental leap type thing, like his mouth couldn’t quite keep up with his brain or something

When my son was that age, he also started to stammer on 'w' words. I'm not going to lie, it was awful to see him like that as he, like your daughter, was a really good talker. We just ignored it and let him take all the time he needed to get it out.

We had a referral to speech and language but it took months to come through. By the time it did, his stammer had stopped.

The doctor who made the referral said to us to think of it like he has all these words in his head he wants to get out by his mouth can't keep up, which sort of made sense.

He's 24 now OP and it never returned.

All 3 of mine started stuttering in their pre-school year - all had stopped by the time they started in reception. (No family history of stuttering). We just ignored it.

It was exactly as if their mouth couldn't keep up with their brain.

Yeah I think it’s pretty common at that age. Too many words, not enough time. It will most likely pass. Ignore.

I could have written this post! My 3.5 year old has started doing this in the last couple of days. He has great language skills and never stops talking and I think he just has so much to say his little brain can't keep up with his mouth!

Or rather , the other way round.. his mouth can't keep up with his brain

My lo went through this. He was an early talker and doing great and then when he was 3 he started stuttering and seemingly getting 'stuck' on words. I was worried but it turned out to be temporary and disappeared as quickly as it started. I'm not sure if it was that his mouth couldn't keep up with his mind or just a 'phase'. He's 4 now and I can't remember the last time he did it.

Ds1 had exactly the same. It went away within 6 months. Just being patient and giving him time to get it all out seemed to work. There were some excellent resources from the SLTs on line that helped. Also taking 10 minutes each day to sit just the 2 of us and have a proper chat.

We went through this a couple of times. Just a few weeks and it went away. Apparently it can quite common especially with boys. It can feel scary and awful but it is most likely it will go away on its own.

This was a few years back - it never stayed around.

My lovely brother had a stammer as a child. He saw a language therapist and a hearing specialist and eventually grew out of it as a young child. It effected his confidence alit though and was very reserved as a teen. He is now 29 and a teacher who was voted most inspirational teacher by an entire school last year which, considering where he was with his stammer, is remarkable. I think if you had told my mum 25 years ago where my brother would be now she'd have laughed at you!
Don't sweat it too much op, easy for me to say, I know.

My boy is almost 4 and has had a couple of 'stammer' stages, one quite bad. But after a few weeks they went. Our nursery manager said it was a quite normal phase but if it goes on for more than a few weeks to contact a speech therapist. Dont worry too much OP

Hi,
long time ago now my daughter started same at roughly the same age but it waxed & waned over the next couple of years.She was assessed by a SLT for dysfluency in Year1 when she became more self conscious about it. Long story short was that it can be quite common when some areas of the brain are developing quickly and other areas aren’t quite keeping up. Dd has no formal treatment, we were given advice to give her time and not be tempted to interrupt her speech to help her along & as a family by not interrupting each other/talking across each other and she’d grow out of it.
She’d grown out of it by Year2 with no recurrence.

Slow down your own speech with her this should encourage her to slow her self down a bit. And as above do not acknowledge it.
If it continues contact a speech therapist.

Both mine did at that age & both had referrals but grew out of it before we needed any help in the end. It was explained to me that developmentally a stammer at that age can just be that the brain capacity is growing so fast the capability of their developing speech delivery almost has a bottleneck & they can’t get all the information out which comes out as a stammer.

Both my kids were really early talkers and surprisingly articulate (when they could get the words out), it’s very common & as far as I understand they are very likely to grow out of it by the time they reach school, which they both did.

We were advised to just not make any issue of it & casually let them take their time to get the words out without giving in to the temptation to guess or prompt/finish their sentences. It can be heartbreaking though I remember my youngest trying to say something to another kid and that kid just walked away as he got bored waiting :(

We went through that too. Dd would completely block on words. It coincided with a period of intense shyness, we had to make sure she knew people were coming over or she would freak out and hide.
We gave her time and ignored it when it happened. We'd talk about her words getting stuck and how she didn't need to worry about it. By the time we had an appointment with speech and language it had gone.

other tics have appeared and disappeared at various stages of her life- right now she tips her head back and shrugs her shoulders- she's in her teens now.

I've got a stammer. It made my childhood very, very tough. Especially the teenage years. It eventually got better when I became an adult and started caring less about what people thought of me. It's still there now but I'm much more fluent than I was as a kid.

Stammer usually start from a traumatic event - has something happened to your DD that is playing on her mind?

For now, as she's so young, id just ignore it. If it perseveres then please try and play it down. Anxiety over how your words will come out on my makes it harder.

Check out the Maguire program. They have some really successful courses on becoming more fluent.

Yes we had a couple of stages of this with the youngest around the same age. Too much info in the brain to get out all at once. My mother wanted me to do something. We ignored her and the stammer and it went away. Just be patient, slow your own speech and dont draw attention to it. If it persists then seek help.

Like @lola above, I've always had a stammer, it waxes and wanes a bit, I'm probably the best I've ever been now (age 50) but it's still
there, and I have words that I know will make me struggle. Speech and language therapy helped me through my wedding (the vows!!) but as others have said, if it doesn't sort itself out early treatment from a professional is essential to avoid a childhood of anxiety and dread.
Good luck to you both!

Thanks everyone for the replies, it really does help. It's just so heartbreaking to watch. A couple of weeks ago she was telling me 'it wasn't an accident mummy, it was deliberate' and now there's times she can barely ask for a drink.

She wasn't an early talker by any means as has glue ear but never met the threshold for SALT, we did go to the drop in sessions a fair bit and practised the strategies. Obviously SALT services are suspended at the moment so I'm at a loss.

My sister had a stammer at a similar age after a traumatic hospital stay. My mum ignored it and it went on it's own. I don't know if DD is aware of it or not, she hasn't mentioned it. Occasionally she'll do some blinking with it but doesn't seem upset by it.

It's coincided with waking at night which she's never done and saying she's scared. In terms of change, obviously the lockdown is massive. She's not at nursery, there's no play dates and I'm not at home which is new for her as we're usually together when she's home.

I'm out the house working, so H is homeschooling DS and working full time in a demanding job. H is not a great communicator so I'm going to reduce my hours, give her more time and structure and hope it helps.

That sounds like a really good idea OP. I'm so sorry she's going through this rough patch. Like you say, lots of cuddles and attention, don't draw attention to the stammer but play it down like it really doesn't matter. It could just be something she picked up from your sister and is coming out now when she's stressed.

The eye blinking is probably just a little tic-like movement when she's trying to get the words out. Stammers do do that but I wouldn't class them as proper tics, it's more like the effort involved to get the words out. I wouldnt worry about them too much. Hopefully once things are back to some sort of normal and she's feeling more relaxed, it will calm down.

I have an almost 3 yr old DD and I'm constantly wondering if she'll end up speaking like I do.

The blinking is familiar to me too. My son has gone through lots of little stages like the stutter, the blinking, lip licking sort of thing. All of them have only stuck around for a few weeks. Sometimes things can trigger it so the blinking started after a fire drill at school scared the kids for example. We just ignore whatever it is and it goes away. He did a counting sort of ODC thing for a few days that really worried me but like all the others it went as fast as it came. I asked other parents at works and their stories come out too so I think it can be a common stage.

One of my children has a stutter (that's their preferred term) they are a young adult now. There have been some very tough times when they weren't picked for school plays, quiz teams and were hurt and confused. Similarly, if they have been picked for public speaking I've nearly made myself sick with nerves. Children and some adults have been cruel and impatient, and I've wanted to kill them and protect my baby. I've had to listen to people telling me that it's down to shyness, nerves, trauma, low intelligence. I even had one therapist tell me it's because they have a lot of siblings who all talk over each other and I've allowed people to interrupt thus causing the stutter. I never really thought the NHS speech therapy did much but I was grateful as it allowed us an outlet to talk about it.
It's been both a curse and a blessing as my child is confident, self reliant and tough due to growing up with this. They are very, very clever and creative and I believe they had so many ideas and thoughts fizzing in their brain that their words just got jumbled. Now they are a young adult who has lots of friends and is in a lovely relationship, I am bursting with pride. Don't make a big deal of it, let them talk, tell your health visitor, look at the website for the Michael Palin Centre and Action for Stammering Children. It might be nothing but if not, they'll be fine.

Thank you both. She's been a bit better this afternoon, we chatted and played a fair bit and there were times she stammered only at the beginning of a sentence rather than all the way through which is a massive improvement. She seems happier in herself and we've made a big fuss of her all weekend.

Dd is generally very laid back and takes everything in her stride, so this has taken me by surprise. She's been the easiest baby/toddler going (unlike DC1 who is still v demanding) but having read your posts, i can see this is linked to her being a sensitive soul, so i need to be mindful of that as she's not a complainer and just gets on with it.

That's interesting about the fire drill. DD is completely petrified of balloons after a couple popped at nursery and was really unsettled by it. I can totally see now how other things might set stuff off for her.