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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