To be concerned...change in toddlers speech

[brachiosaurusdance]

DS is 3 and has started repeating the ends of words. Speech was very delayed and we've had lots of issues due to significant hearing problems from a young age and has only been talking for the last 6 months or so. But we've really made progress and are able to understand him completely now a majority of the time.

However he has randomly started repeating the ends of words. Example "mummy put it back, ck ck ck ck ck." "where's my T. rex ex ex ex ex" it started almost overnight and he does it most of the time now. Should I be concerned?

I’m going to give this a few bumps for you. It’d be a shame if it disappeared off the radar.

Bump

All three of mine developed a traditional stutter at around that age and it's fairly common. Stuttering at the end might be similar .

It sounds like a stutter.

My DS has just turned 3 and has started stuttering too. I was quite concerned, as it was happening all the time. But he hasn’t stuttered in a few days now.

Have been reassured (by Google) that it is quite common.

It is apparently more common in boys too.

My son developed this at the same age too. It's called a word-final disfluency. Very common to have phases of it. He did see a speech and language therapist because it was still a problem age 6 but they said it wasn't bad enough to do anything with. It's improved quite a lot naturally, he's 7 now, but tends to get worse when he's tired or excited. He is possibly dyslexic and it could be related to that.

Should add he also had a "traditional" stutter sometimes, and also still uses a LOT of filler words, (um, like, er etc)

I sympathise because also have a son who was partly deaf from birth and was slow at talking because of it. Sorry, I don't have any idea why this is happening but could it be that he likes the sound or feeling of the endings of the words or is he copying a childrens tv programme where they emphasise or repeat sounds. Maybe you could try repeating what he says ' Yes put it back' or 'yes, where's your t-rex ' making sure you end it correctly.

You haven’t recently had a baby? My son did this at 3 soon after his baby sister was born, he did receive speech therapy and grew out of it. I think it’s very common in boys.

Thank you all so much for your replies. Reassuring that others have had it and it hasn't turned into a major problem.

Nope, younger sibling is 18 months, the only change over the last few weeks is stopping nursery, he isn't full time but they have animals and he just loves everyone there.

That's really interesting nanbread, as the one thing that's always stood out is the constant "umm, umm, umm, umm mummy" he also gets very difficult to understand when excited or frustrated.

Thanks again all, will contact his speech therapist and go from there.