Stuttering!

[bisous]

DS3 has been stuttering for a long time and now that hes 8 I’m thinking its time to talk to a pro! We were watching it for awhile and it hasn’t really relented. My DS1 stuttered until he was about 6 but grew out of it and I didn’t have to do anything so I’m in new territory.

His teacher said she’ll refer to the speech therapist but is this a speech therapist thing?

For what it’s worth we’re globally assessing him for anxiety/ADHD so a lot is going on.

Wonder if you have any advice about who to see or what to do?

[hbridge]

We had a full speech evaluation done at the "local" children's hospital. It answered a LOT of questions. They did a full hearing screening first. Definitely worth checking out!

DC has a dysfluency that is not an actual stutter.

[mom2binsd]

Yes, it's abolutely a speech therapy thing!

You can either go through school, as it sounds like the teacher has maybe already made a referral. Expect to see some paperwork come home from the school SLP soon. Schools are often doing a "triage" that is called RTI (response to intervention), but stuttering may not fall under that method and they might go straight to an evaluation.

The thing with stuttering is, in my 15 years of experience, you don't see many kids who stutter at school, and many school SLP's are not as experienced in "fluency therapy" as they are with articulation and language disorders. So your SLP may or may not have a lot of experience. I happened to have had a lot as my grad school chair was known as the Stuttering Guru in the US and I got a lot of specific training.

You could also check out some of the nearby colleges that have a Speech Pathology grad program/onsite clinic. They are great places to get therapy and will probably have a clinician who specializes in fluency. The thing with fluency is that training and educating the parents is almost as important as working with the child. A local children's hospital is also a good place to look for therapy as well. The benefit of doing therapy at a private clinic is it gives you the opportunity to observe (usually via a two way mirror) what the therapist is doing to model fluent speech/what strategies and what things they want you to do as parents, which in the schools can be challenging.

There are a few organizations who are also helpful for parents.

Check out the National Stuttering Association (westutter.org) and the Stuttering Foundation (stutteringhelp.org).

Niccig is a school SLP in CA currently so she may have more local information for you .

It sounds like it may be time to at least have him seen and you can get an idea of what you can do at home to help and if the teacher feels it's impacting his education/self esteem etc.

[niccig]

Yes it’s speech therapy. You can ask for an evaluation at school. Whether he meets eligibility criteria depends on severity and if it’s impacting access to the curriculum. Private therapy is always a possibility too.Just so you know, therapy doesn’t cure stuttering, focus is on teaching the person to accept they stutter and to teach strategies to minimize any negative affects. Some people will stop talking because they stutter. It’s up to person when they want to use the strategies, it’s exhausting to use them all the time. One of my professors at grad school is a person who stutters, and she was specialist in fluency therapy.

Oh and just a FYI, side effects of some medications including some ADHD meds is stuttering.


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[niccig]

Yes, it's abolutely a speech therapy thing!

You can either go through school, as it sounds like the teacher has maybe already made a referral. Expect to see some paperwork come home from the school SLP soon. Schools are often doing a "triage" that is called RTI (response to intervention), but stuttering may not fall under that method and they might go straight to an evaluation.

The thing with stuttering is, in my 15 years of experience, you don't see many kids who stutter at school, and many school SLP's are not as experienced in "fluency therapy" as they are with articulation and language disorders. So your SLP may or may not have a lot of experience. I happened to have had a lot as my grad school chair was known as the Stuttering Guru in the US and I got a lot of specific training.

You could also check out some of the nearby colleges that have a Speech Pathology grad program/onsite clinic. They are great places to get therapy and will probably have a clinician who specializes in fluency. The thing with fluency is that training and educating the parents is almost as important as working with the child. A local children's hospital is also a good place to look for therapy as well. The benefit of doing therapy at a private clinic is it gives you the opportunity to observe (usually via a two way mirror) what the therapist is doing to model fluent speech/what strategies and what things they want you to do as parents, which in the schools can be challenging.

There are a few organizations who are also helpful for parents.

Check out the National Stuttering Association (westutter.org) and the Stuttering Foundation (stutteringhelp.org).

Niccig is a school SLP in CA currently so she may have more local information for you .

It sounds like it may be time to at least have him seen and you can get an idea of what you can do at home to help and if the teacher feels it's impacting his education/self esteem etc.

Yes to all of this. I have 3 students out of 60 who I see for fluency. My grad school professor was very good so I’m comfortable with fluency therapy and my district has a SLP who specializes in fluency and I can consult with him (perks of working for a large district).I am at a disadvantage as I do not get to work with the family. I call and talk with parents, make times to meet, but it’s not the same.

My grad school clinic had fluency clinic, low cost as compared to private therapy. Therapy is by students overseen by professor who was fluency specialist. Have a look at your closest cal state college.


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[Daniel596]

The speech therapist has to deal with this. He will be able to refer to other doctors if additional examinations are needed.

[bisous]

Super interesting. So he’s not deterred at all by his stuttering. And he’s exceptional at expressing himself. He’s both extremely perceptive and his expressions are very descriptive and nuanced. It’s hard to describe. I have four smart kids but he kind of blows me away with what he’s observed. So if the only treatment is to help him deal with the fall out but he sees no negative impact at all...is treatment even needed yet? He’s extremely confident and self-assured. He usually stutters when he’s excited. Not when he’s nervous.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I want to handle this correctly!

[PZMommy]

My younger DS went through a stage where he stuttered. It lasted for a bit and then went away. It happened when his brain was working faster than his mouth was. he had so much to say and he just couldn't get it out fast enough. We had him assessed by the SLP at school because we also were concerned about a lisp, but he didn't qualify for any services via the school district. The SLP gave us some tips and help for what we could do at home, and she has checked up on him a few times, but his issues still don't qualify him for speech. The stuttering is gone, and we have worked hard on the lisp. Neither issue ever really phased him, it was more of us or teachers being concerned.

[essnce629]

My DS2 has gotten speech therapy 3 different times over the past 10 years, all for different reasons. He started stuttering in 2nd grade and both his teacher and I requested an evaluation at school. He's been receiving services ever since.

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[niccig]

Super interesting. So he’s not deterred at all by his stuttering. And he’s exceptional at expressing himself. He’s both extremely perceptive and his expressions are very descriptive and nuanced. It’s hard to describe. I have four smart kids but he kind of blows me away with what he’s observed. So if the only treatment is to help him deal with the fall out but he sees no negative impact at all...is treatment even needed yet? He’s extremely confident and self-assured. He usually stutters when he’s excited. Not when he’s nervous.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I want to handle this correctly!

It’s worth getting it checked out. There are moments of normal disfluency that everyone experiences. No one is 100% fluent all of the time. A SLP can rule out normal disfluency from stuttering and determine if therapy is needed or not. Younger children can have increased number of normal disfluencies. I explain this to my teachers, but I want them to tell me about the child as they don’t know how to distinguish what is normal disfluency from stuttering. I can screen a child by going into class and observing. I also like to keep an eye on students as there can be times when stuttering can increase or decrease depending on what’s going on in their life.

If a person isn’t experiencing negative impact, then therapy may not be warranted. It’s important though to find out their feelings, especially if older child, as they can develop strategies to hide stuttering and will tell me they don’t care, but on questionnaires they indicate it is bothering them. It takes time to build rapport and have kids open up about it. The goal for therapy is to reduce any negative feelings and struggles that are impacting communication rather than be 100% fluent. If stuttering isn’t bothering a student, then I don’t see them for therapy or if I was seeing them, I put them on consult so I can check in on them.


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[Dream]

My older DD started stuttering when she was about 3 years old and didn’t show any signs of improving. Her kinder teacher didn’t notice it much, and She didn’t qualify for therapy. But we felt we wanted to take care of it now than later. A college close to us offer speech therapy, the department works with the school program and it a way for their students to get hands on experience. It didn’t qualify for insurance so we paid out of pocket. We had therapy for over a year and it was successful. There was a therapist in the room at all times and he would work with my daughter sometime but he also over see their students while they work on different things with my daughter.

[KpbS]

I would try to take care of it now versus later. I feel bad for older kids and adults who have speech problems that have never been corrected.

[hbridge]

I would try to take care of it now versus later. I feel bad for older kids and adults who have speech problems that have never been corrected.

Please don't judge older kids and adults. You didn't in this statement, but it is eluded to and there is a tendency to "blame" someone (usually the parent) when there is an issue with an older child or young adult that people think "should" have been "corrected" when they were younger. There are MANY reasons why treatment could not be given and/or did not work. Sometimes it's simply a matter of prioritizing what the child needs. For example, working on regulation so the child can live at home and stay in school may be more important than a stutter; years of speech therapy may have improved a persons speech so that they can speak but have a stutter; you just don't know.

Please just don't judge. Everyone is doing the best they can and making the best decisions they can.

[niccig]

I would try to take care of it now versus later. I feel bad for older kids and adults who have speech problems that have never been corrected.

There is no cure for stuttering. Years of therapy doesn’t make it go away. An adult that stutters should not be judged or felt “bad” for. The leading experts in speech therapy for stuttering are people who stutter themselves.

Some people don’t have access to therapy or have other medical issues that have higher priority. Some things aren’t easily “fixed” either depending on why it’s happening and personal circumstances. And many things do not affect a person’s success in life. Drew Barrymore has a lisp. James Earl Jones, Darth Vader’s voice, stutters. Joe Biden stutters.

The goal of speech therapy isn’t for a person to have perfect speech. It’s for them to be as an effective communicator as possible. Besides, no one has perfect speech 100% of the time.

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[KpbS]

I’m not judging people who have imperfect speech. I was speaking of 3 instances—2 of an older children (no stuttering) who who haven’t had any recent therapy and one adult who did not because of decisions parents have made. Yes, no one has perfect speech and parents have to make the best decisions they can given the circumstances, but I think an effort should be made. What I was saying is speech problems should be addressed if at all possible and the earlier the better for a minimized impact for the child.

[niccig]

I’m not judging people who have imperfect speech. I was speaking of 3 instances—2 of an older children (no stuttering) who who haven’t had any recent therapy and one adult who did not because of decisions parents have made. Yes, no one has perfect speech and parents have to make the best decisions they can given the circumstances, but I think an effort should be made. What I was saying is speech problems should be addressed if at all possible and the earlier the better for a minimized impact for the child.

For speech therapy to be effective, there has to be buy in from the child. They have to do what needs to be done to correct the issues. Not the parent or the therapist. I’m speaking as a SLP who has discharged teens that know how to correct the sound but don’t do it outside the therapy room as they don’t care they say it incorrectly. I was also that kid that got discharged for the same reason. I had correct /s/ in the room but didn’t care I had a lisp. I did finally correct it when I was motivated, thanks to debate team. The child has a lot of control of the process.

Actually, all rehab is this way, there has to be patient buy-in regardless of age. I did PT for an injury and I wasn’t doing the exercises they gave me. It was taking longer to recover because *I* didn’t do the work.

For the adult you mention that parents didn’t address, they can seek out therapy now if they wish . No age limit. Maybe it doesn’t bother them enough to do that, which is totally fine, it’s their choice. Private speech therapy is expensive, which is often the deterrent, as it’s not always covered under insurance. School speech therapy is limited too, and not all children who could benefit meet eligibility criteria.


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