Stuttering Smoothing the Way to Surer Speech

STUTTERING

Smoothing the Way to Surer Speech

British statesman Sir Winston Churchill was a stutterer, as were scientist Sir Isaac Newton and writer W. Somerset Maugham. So are singer Carly Simon and actors Bruce Willis and James Earl Jones. That your child is in such distinguished company may be small consolation, though. Stuttering is a problem that can affect your child's social life, his school performance and his self-esteem.

There are many theories on why people stutter, but none is conclusive. One thing that is clear is that stuttering--or disfluency, as the experts call it--is a problem of childhood. 'Ninety percent of the people who are going to stutter start to do so by the time they're seven,' says Edward Conture, Ph.D., a professor of speech-language pathology and chairperson of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Syracuse University and one of the nation's leading experts on childhood stuttering.

There is good news: Most children who begin to stutter gradually stop. Therapy with a trained speech and language pathologist tends to be quite successful, says Barry Guitar, Ph.D, professor of communication sciences and disorders at the Eleanor M. Luse Center for Communication Disorders at the University of Vermont College of Arts and Sciences in Burlington.

False Starts Can Be Normal

Your three-year-old can't seem to get out a thought without countless false starts. Each sentence he utters seems to double back on itself as he edits and re-edits every phrase. Occasionally, he trips over a word. Is your child a stutterer?

There's a good chance he's just experiencing the normal period of disfluency many children go through sometime between the ages of 18 months and six years, says Barry Guitar, Ph.D., professor of communication sciences and disorders at the Eleanor M. Luse Center for Communication Disorders at the University of Vermont College of Arts and Sciences in Burlington. 'Children with normal disfluency problems will repeat words or syllables once or twice, li-li-like this,' he says.

When is there cause for worry? ' We get concerned when kids repeat parts of words more than once or twice,' says Dr. Guitar. 'There's also some cause for concern if a child gets stuck on a word and it just won't come out, or if the child appears to be struggling, showing physical tension as he speaks.'

If you suspect your child could be a stutterer, contact a trained speech and language pathologist who specializes in stuttering. Both the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association, 10801 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, and the Stuttering Foundation of America, P.O. Box 11749, Memphis, Tennessee 38111-0749, can make referrals.

However, intervention needs to be undertaken early, says Dr. Guitar, himself a stutterer. ' With the majority of kids under five, treatment helps so much they will either overcome their problem or have only a minor disfluency. If the stuttering is severe, treatment is usually successful in helping the child learn to deal with it so it doesn't interfere with communication.'

Though stuttering generally requires professional help, there are many supplemental things parents can do at home to help their child overcome this relatively common problem. Here are some simple techniques suggested by the experts.

Talk like Mister Rogers. That means slow down and speak clearly. Although many parents find this television personality's delivery annoying, his rate of speech does closely match kids' speech-processing abilities, according to Dr. Guitar. 'On the other hand, if a child is listening to an adult speaking at a very rapid rate, the child will also try to speak rapidly and may become discoordinated,' says Dr. Guitar.

By slowing down, you're modeling a way of speaking that your child is realistically able to achieve, adds Dr. Conture. 'It also provides the child with sufficient time to smoothly and easily generate his own speech. Initially, in a conversation with your child, you may only need to do this for about five minutes. Then you can probably go back to a more typical speaking rate, provided you don't talk too rapidly.'

Take the pause that encourages. Don't be too hasty in responding to a child's comment or question, says Dr. Conture. 'Pause for one or two seconds before you respond,' he says. This will underscore the calm, slow pace of conversation and make it easier for the stuttering child to keep up his end of the conversation.

Set aside a special time to chat. Life is busy for everyone these days, and parents can't always drop everything and engage in slow, measured conversation. 'But it helps if a child knows that he has a certain time each day when the parent is going to listen to him. Even if you can only set aside five or ten minutes, that can compensate for the fact that life is too busy and rushed,' says Dr. Guitar.

Let the child talk about his feelings. When you set aside some time to be with your child, let the child direct the conversation, says Dr. Guitar. Children who are going through a tough period may have a lot of feelings and thoughts that have gone unexpressed, he notes. These quiet times with you, when the child is in charge, may give him the sense of security he needs to express himself. 'It can really be magical if you create an environment where the child feels free to talk about feelings and where all feelings are considered okay and normal.'

Use the salt shaker trick. A child who stutters may get shut out of fast-paced dinner conversations. One way to make things easier is to give dinner-table talk a special structure, says Dr. Guitar. 'One family used a salt shaker that was passed around the table. If you had the salt shaker, it was your turn to talk and no one could interrupt you. This kind of structure is good for the stutterer because he doesn't feel he always has to struggle to get a word in.'

Avoid 'simultalk.' 'Try not to talk over the end of your child's utterance,' says Dr. Conture. Though you sometimes may be tempted to finish your child's long, labored sentences, complete his thoughts or interrupt him in a rush to get the conversation moving, let him finish. Otherwise you could possibly make his stuttering worse.

Don't be so picky. Kids who stutter need to know that they don't have to be perfect, that they can make mistakes and still be okay. Many of these children worry more about how they talk than what they say. 'They worry about being perfect in talking, rather than just talking,' says Dr. Conture. 'Parents can help though, by not being so picky about everything--the child's room, his fingernails, his homework, his chores. Give the kid some slack,' says Dr. Conture, 'so he can learn he can screw up and make mistakes and the world doesn't end.'

Let speaking skills come naturally. Parents who are constantly correcting speech mistakes or stressing verbal skills can worsen their child's stuttering problems. 'Take away any pressures,' says Dr. Guitar. 'Kids will develop language and speech skills on their own just by hearing conversation. They don't need to grow up in households where there's a lot of time spent learning vocabulary and the names of all the dinosaurs.'

Make the teacher your ally. It's important that your child's teacher understand how to handle speech problems. 'Giving oral reports, volunteering answers in class and reading aloud are all difficult things for the stuttering child. Don't ask the teacher to excuse your child from these activities,' says Dr. Guitar, 'but open up communication so the child feels comfortable talking to the teacher about it. Kids who stutter will have good days and bad days. Your child may want to strike a deal with the teacher that he's only called on when his hand is up, so his good days can be taken advantage of and his bad days forgiven.'

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