MY DD HAS STARTED STUTTERING

[ELLYMOO]

HI ALL

This is my first time on here, hoping that someone can give me some good advice. My DD is 4 years of age and out of the blue this week has started with a stutter. I have no idea how overnight this has suddenly began. She isin't worried or upset over anything and wonder what could have started this off. When she begins a sentence for EG Where are we going we get a wwwwwwwwww then where are we going and then the conversation is as normal. I am really worried. Any advice would be great Thanks.....

Is she in school/nursery yet? If she is, you could ask for a consultation with a Speach & Language Therapist.

However! Stuttering runs in my DHs family and we told the school about this as soon as our DS started nursery aged 3 and we were told that a true stutter wouldn't come up at that time yet and that children will often stutter when they are nervous, excited and when they are having developmental growth spurts. Basically, their brain knows the words, but not quite how to get the word out yet.

Hope this helps at all :)
Jolande

Hi

She is in nursery, I am going to inform them tmrw what's been happening
Thank you for your reply

My DS (now 13) developed a stutter at around 3-4yrs but by 7 had gone. I believe this is a common occurance and comes as Jolande said when they are trying to get all the words out at once. We just were patient and stopped and listened to him waiting for him to get the sentence out, not interupting or bringing attention to it, the health visitor said if he was made to feel anxious it could develop into a perminent stutter.

Stammers can start earlier than 3, yes it is something that a lot of children go through and grow out of, but some do need intervention.

Mummyloveskisses, I think your HV was wrong tbh, sometimes dd's stammer is worse when she is anxious, but it is usually worse when she is excited. I don't think (and dd's SALT doesn't think!) that anxiety is the thing that makes it permanent.

Op, if you are worried about your dd, then have a word with your HV, and if it continues, ask for a referral to a speech and language therapist (be aware that there can be long waiting lists)

DD is exactly 4, and I've just noticed in the past couple of days that she's developed a mid-sentence stutter. I've put it down to a development spurt, since recently she's also started to ask more questions about death, where babies come from etc. etc. And we've had visitors, which always seems to precipitate development spurts.

Thanks for the advice about how to handle it, MLK.