What causes kids to stutter?

[HIU8]

DS is 6. He stuttered for about 6 months when he was 2. A speech therapist told us that if it lasts under a year it was not a big deal, but if it continued we needed to get DS some help. So, it's been 4 years since he was stuttering. It's started again. Does anyone's DC stutter? What, if anything have you done for it? DH thinks it's due to the DSi. DS got one for the holidays and plays it about 4x a week. I've been doing some research, but have found nothing linking use of video games and stuttering.

[LMPC]

DD has just started stuttering, but at this point I'm thinking it's just developmentally appropriate and taking a watch and see approach. My brother stuttered for a while when he was 2-3ish. My parents took him to speech therapy and that helped him to stop. They did a lot of "deep breath and then try to speak" work with him. He was a full throttle kind of kid and couldn't get the words out quickly enough.

I believe there are several reasons why people stutter -- anxiety, tic disorder, etc. I have never heard of it being caused by gaming, though.

[daisymommy]

Children that have ADHD and sensory issues are generally prone to stuttering. Their neurons are firing waaaay too fast up there and they cannot slow their thought processes down long enough to filter it all out and be able to clearly speak their thoughts. My father, brother, and DS all stutter. Yes, it is genetically linked for many people, and yes they all three have ADHD and sensory issues. Brother was in speech therapy for years, and it really helped. His stuttering is mostly gone now, except for when he is tired or upset. DS has been in speech therapy for 2 years and we have seen improvement recently.

Interestingly enough, one time DS described it as having 20 T.V.'s on inside your head, and you have to listen to just one of them to say what you want to say. Pretty wise for a 6 year old child!

Studies show that if you can get both the left and right side of the brain engaged at one time, while a child is speaking, their stuttering is greatly reduced. That's why most stutterers can sing a song without stuttering. It takes the right (creative) & left side (speech center) to do that. So it sort of cancels out any noise interference going on up there. My brother and DS can sing commercial jingles, do voice impersonations, etc. without stuttering once! But talking in conversation has always been terrible.

My brother figured out when he was a kid that if he traced a shape in the air with his finger while he was speaking, his stuttering was reduced. How crazy is that? No-one knew why at the time, but now doctor's know it's because it took his right and left brain working together.

I agree, that I have been told many kids stutter for 6 months or less, and in that case it's just a developmental stage; their brain is playing catch-up. But if it goes on longer that, you need to look into it and get help. DS has been stuttering for 4 years now. At times he couldn't get a single word out, it was so sad :( He would just cry and shut down. It's getting better with therapy thankfully though.

[HIU8]

DS hasn't stuttered for 4 years though. I'm wondering if it's anxiety related. I have an email in to his school to see if he is doing it there (it literally started on Monday). I would assume they would have alerted me though if they noticed it.

When DS was 2 we were told it was a developmental stage and it would go away. It did. It disappeared like magic. same as it just came on again--suddenly.

Meanwhile when DS starts stuttering we stop what we are doing and give him complete and full attention. We also help him to slow down (and sometimes rub his back when he is talking).

My brother stuttered until he was about 10. He saw a speech therapist for several years also.

[daisymommy]

The start-stop of it all sounds like just a phase to me. Probably anxiety related as you said. There's no way to know if it's really concerning until you have passed that "wait and see" time period.

[HIU8]

Is it the same, around 6 months, as it was at age 2?

[daisymommy]

Thats what I was told, yes.

[mom2binsd]

It is NOT caused by the DSi, there are many many possible reasons for stuttering, often though when treating children and adults with dysfluent speech therapists focus not on the cause but the behaviors that will increase fluency.

There is research that shows a genetic component, I even did some research looking at parental speech patterns (the mom spoke super fast, was constantly asking closed questions and gave the child no time to just "talk"). We showed that when we were able to modify mom's speech patterns that the child had much higher periods of fluency- we did an ABAB type study in the clinic.

Stuttering is waaaay more common in boys too!

Yes stuttering is related to anxiety, often it coincides with a new sibling, a move, divorce etc.

The SLP was right that unless the stuttering persists for extended periods of time it is considered 'normal' dysfluency.

This is a great resource.

http://www.stutteringhelp.org/