Should I be worried about my 3-year-old's speech?

[WallOfSilence]

My son is 3.6 & although he doesn't speak that clearly we all know what he's saying.

Lately (about 2 months now) he has started stumbling. I am tempted to say stuttering but in my experience of stuttering (went to school with 2 boys who had an impediment)I don't think it's the same.

He can start a sentence fine, no faltering.. but in the middle of the sentence he can say: "Mammy, guess what IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII did?" Or "Do you know howhowhowhowhow that happened?"

It's different words all the time. For example he can say 'I' properly in one sentence & then say it about 12 times in the next sentence.

I'm not worried as such, just wondering really if I should be doing something to help him?

Dh thinks it's a habit he has got into & doesn't know how to break. I think he's trying to say that much stuff at once he gets all excited & his mouth can't catch up with his brain... unlike his mammy whose brain spends most of the day trying to catch up with her mouth

Anyone got any experience of this?

Yessss!! My DD1 does this ,she is 3.10 yrs.I have a friend who is a speech Therapist,and she isnt worried.Like you say they have so much to say they sometimes have to thnk whilst they are talking!They will gradually grow out of it.I used to say to her,when she did it all the time,"try and think what you want to say first,Darling". I don't supposed it helped,but she doesn't do it so much now.

I think you can stutter the same word in one sentence and not in another. It depends what the word before is.

My DS did it, I think it's very very common at this stage - their attention span is all over the place, and there are so many things for them to be interested in, they lose track in the middle of a sentence.

I listen to him while doing some else (so not too much attention on him) until he gets to the end. It comes and goes, depends how many things he's interested in / what the level of excitement is that day!

My dd is the same so much so that I asked for a referal to a Speech Therapist.

She says she has got very advanced language skills for her age(we read a lot of books)and she just can't keep up with what she wants to say. She probably summed it up a lot better than I just did. She also said it's quite common and children that start doing it at this age nearly always grow out of it before starting school.

I've started giving dd more time to speak(she has 4 year old twin brothers so it's not easy)and it's nearly gone. She'll be 4 at Xmas.

Actually what you said at the bottom of your post is exactly how she described it.

She said it's very common amongst bright kids with good language skills, she was probably just being nice but it did stop me worrying as she definately wasn't worried about it.

Was nice to think of it in a positive light and has boosted dd's confidence with speech no end as she explained it all in front of her.Was worth going, would recommend it if you can get a referal from your hv.

God my last 2 posts sounded dreadfull, apologies.Just wanted you to know it's not necessarily a bad thing that he does it iykwim

Oh and she also said to ignore and not focus on it too.Off to get some sleep now.

Thanks all

I mentioned it to his playgroup leader who I know very well & she said she wouldn't class it as a speech problem.

I never rush him but I was wondering if I should correct him or ignore it, looks like I will ignore it

Thanks.