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Original poster

stuttering 3 year old

17 replies

pinkymo · 19/04/2008 14:08

My dd has been great in her speech development and seemed to be ahead of her peers until around 2 months ago when she developed a kind of stutter.She sometimes gets stuck on the first letter of a word but it's more of a mix of repetitions in her sentence. She say something like M m m m mummmy, wwwww will you get get get get get me me me me an ice cccc cream please. Sometimes it seems like she can't think of the next word and sometimes she just gives up. If I ask her if she wants a cheese or jan sandwich, she'd say ch ch ch ch ch....jam because she realises she can't grasp the word. Some days she's fine and no one would notice her being any different than any other 3 year old, then others she can barely string a fluent sentence together. It seems to have come on out of the blue and comes and goes with more bad days than good. I'm getting worried that she will have a permanent speech issue. Has anyone come across this before?

OP posts:
blanktyblank · 19/04/2008 14:43

my son had a stutter aged4 but it soon went away as did my nephew that also went wawy as he grwe up .
dont worry to much it probably just a phase

landj · 19/04/2008 15:52

Yeah my son had the same. My HV said that their brain can work faster than their mouths at this age. She said if it was still happening after 6 months then contact GP. To be honest, I totally forgot about it because it just dissapeared over night. We used to have to make him slow down, or start again.

Twinkie1 · 19/04/2008 15:58

Agree with landj - its the age old brain quicker than the mouth problem - I still have it and don't notice it until someone mentions it to me!

cba · 19/04/2008 16:00

i had this ds2, but it got to the point where he would cry because he couldnt speak and started to lose eye contact when speaking. We got a private speech therapist and I am not kidding after one session it was gone, needed about four sessions in total. Well worth the money. She did say we could have waited but I did not want as it had started to effect him to the point where he did not want to speak.

mrsleroyjethrogibbs · 19/04/2008 17:03

totally normal. my friend had this with her little girl and the HV said it was totally normal

Original poster
pinkymo · 19/04/2008 20:50

Thanks everyone, I feel much more reassured. This is the first message time I've used Mumsnet. Wow what a support network..!

OP posts:
colie · 19/04/2008 21:42

my dd1 was 2 and a half when hers started. Hv said she woudl refer her to speach therapy but we would have some time to wait. Of course I went on to the internet and panicked myself thinking she would end up with a stammer.
hv referred her in the dec and we got to attend a parent group in the august for "parents of kids with stammers". It was good but it was info we already knew.
Go onto the british association of stammering and they have wonderful advice and info on what you can do to help your child.
We did eventually see a speach therapist who said the same as everyone else on here. That her speach was excellent and well above her age level, this can cause a child to stammer as basically know too many words for their little brains.
She was about 4 and a half when it totally cleared up. She was exactly the same as your daughter. Eventually just stopped trying to say the words. I found it all very upsetting but as I said it did go away.
Btw-speach therapist was very impressed that I had been using the advice from the british stammering association.

colie · 19/04/2008 21:45

pinkymo-tried to get you the link to the site but I am hopeless at things like that.
If you google "british stammering association" it will come up. There is a section for "under 5's". Full of the same advice the speach therapist gave us. Hope this helps you.

jellybelly2007 · 19/04/2008 22:01

DS1 had a stutter at around the same age, drs and HVs said same thing, and he outgrew it in about 6 months or so. Couldnt watch Life Of Brian while it was happening though!LOL.

NotQuiteCockney · 19/04/2008 22:03

Normal normal normal. Both mine had it, it comes, it goes away, it comes back, whatever.

I don't ever fuss about it, I don't ever rush them, I don't ever try to finish their sentences for them (although DS2 would get frustrated and say 'you say it', which is a bit when I have no idea wtf he's trying to say!).

It did get a bit difficult, because I stutter when v v tired (not normally, at all), and DS2 would make fun of me for my tiredness stutter, while he had one himself. That was a bit , not least because tiredness doesn't really help my temper.

Dottydot · 19/04/2008 22:06

Yep - ds1 went through this as well - a stutter which came out of nowhere and then disappeared a few months later.

They don't half know how to worry you though, don't they!

bluenosesaint · 19/04/2008 22:13

This is really normal and is known as 'normal dysfluency'. My dd1 started with this when she was 2.5. Its often very upsetting for them (and you) and my poor little girl used the get so upset she would sit down, cry and say "i can't talk anymore - you talk for me"

Apparantly it is very common in children between the ages of 2 and 5 and is often found in children who were clear and early speakers. This was certainly the case with my dd.

In most cases the child simply grows out of it. My dd stopped when she was around 5.5 (i think) although it was no-where near as bad towards the tail end.

A couple of tips that i was given are:

  1. Slow down your speech. Little ones cannot process in the same way as we do, but they do try to speak to us the same way as we speak to them. If you slow down - they will too.
  1. Don't be tempted to finish off their sentences for them. It just compounds the problem.
  1. Ignore it wherever possible. BUT do not tolerate bullying (my poor dd was picked on and laughed at )

I did seek help from SALT. We had to wait around 6 mths for an appt. I'm not sure that it helped dd at all, but it did help me.

hth

terramum · 19/04/2008 22:17

DS had a stutter around the same time - he just had too many words in his head & was trying to think of which one to sue next. Being patient & letting him finish his sentences by himself seemed to work...he still does it occasionally when he is very excited...but doesn't get frustrated with it as long as whoever he is speaking to lets him finish.

SquonkTheBeerGuru · 19/04/2008 22:22

Hi. This was exactly my ds.

I asked my HV what (if anything) I should do, and they referred me straight away to speech therapy.

we went, and she said that it is really, really common. Tis very common in children who are advanced speech-wise and most of them grow out of it.

If he was not going to grow out of it, they wouldn't really do very much until he is 5. However, ds seems to have outgrown it now (we'll see, though because sometimes it came and went a bit)

They told me that we must not draw attention to his stutter. That we should just be patient and wait for him to get the word. Other than that, just wait and see.

Good luck
xx

Original poster
pinkymo · 19/04/2008 23:15

I'm feeling so much better about it all now. I'd read some stuff on the internet which led me to think that it was fairly normal but when I called my HV for some 'professional' reassurance, she didn't even want to talk to me about it and referred us to a speech therapist straight away. The HV hasn't even heard my DD talk and now we have an appointment with the therapist for 23rd May. I must say that her swift actions alarmed me more than anything.
Thanks everyone for the support, I feel much less stressed about it.
xx

OP posts:
Anshif · 30/11/2019 17:42

My DS is going through the same phase now. I too worried, dont know whether it will be permanent to him

KingEmily · 03/12/2019 20:39

Any Advice, Please?

Ex employer has proposed I summit my Preliminary Hearing agenda to them?

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