2.5yo stuttering - how long to wait for treatment
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My 2.5 year old was finally advancing in her verbal skills to the point we could understand nearly all she was saying. Now, about 10 days ago she started stuttering, or more like extreme hesitation. It happens about 50% of the time when she speaks. When she stutters, you cannot understand anything she is saying. She is not showing any signs of frustration yet, but after trying to say it twice, she usually just stops trying.
My husband and I both stuttered as children and my 7yo son also stuttered - but his was directly related to sensory integration d/o. Once his sensory was under control, his speech improved.
I feel like I have a decent amount of knowledge in this subject, but I just do not want to over-analyze and put her under the microscope of therapists too early.
How long should I wait (giving her time to work it out herself) before seeking treatment?
You can just get her into 0-3 Child Find speech I would think. Have you talked to them yet?
I have a stutterer and he started private speech at age 3 and it didn't remotely help. Not at all. Switched to public speech at 4. Still didn't help. When he went into regular school he was in speech and while it helped other issues it did nothing for the stuttering. He also went to a summer long intense stuttering clinic at university and it didn't help. Now he is in 6th grade and we stopped all speech this school year. All non-stuttering issues were remediated at that point.
Anyway, that's just my son's story. I know of others who just did public speech for stuttering and their child improved.
My son doesn't have hesitation. He repeats, for example "C-c-c-c-c-can I have some some something to eat please?" It is worse when he is tired. There are weeks at a time where he doesn't do it all. It started shortly after he started talking. He's considered a moderate stutterer.
ASAP!!!!! There is a window that starts closing at age 5 and pretty much completely closed by age 8. During this open window time, the child's brain can be taught to change it's connections and compensate. Try having your child sing when speaking. When you sing you are using different parts of the brain to say the words. People who stutter, don't when they sing, this also applies to people that have had stroke and loose their speech for a time. It's a technique called Melodic Intonation Therapy. Gradually you drop the singing and the amazing brain can reprogram it's self.
I am a speech pathologist and I must respectfully disagree with Musicmom. The "window" relates to speech (articulation) and language development, not fluency (the medical term for stuttering).
Developmental disfluency is VERY common. This is when children ages 2-4 stutter because they are having a huge language explosion, but they don't have the fine motor skills in their mouth to correlate with all of the language development. Basically they just think faster than they can talk, so hesitations (waiting or going um-um-um), prolongations (ssssssoup), and repetitions (Can-can-can we go play?) are increasingly common. Since your DD has just begun to show signs of disfluency, I would just hold tight for now and not rush off to have her evaluated just yet. Also, disfluency tends to increase at times of high excitement (vacation, birthdays, holidays), high stress (divorce, family tension), and/or change in routine.
For now, pay her full attention when she is speaking. Turn off the TV or put down the magazine you are reading and devote your attention to her so she doesn't feel like she has to compete. Don't ask her to perform verbally (ex. "Show grandma how you say your ABCs), don't tell her to slow down, and don't speak for her even if you know what she is trying to say. Model slow, easy speech--Mr. Rogers is an EXCELLENT example of how to talk. Here is a handout that I typically give to parents of preschoolers with developmental disfluency. It has a lot of excellent suggestions and examples.
I would also recommend having fun with music, but not having your child sing instead of speak. That is not functional because we don't communicate with each other on a daily basis by singing. The reason that people are more fluent when they sing is because there is continual airflow through the vocal cords and it lessens to opportunity to repeat or block on words and speech sounds. It is a typically used therapy technique for older children and adults (not singing, but teaching continual airflow). Melodic Intonation Therapy is an entirely different technique that is used for stroke patients as Musicmom mentioned, but it doesn't involve continual airflow, rather its focus is on the melody and intonational patterns of speech and it elicits words that are being blocked not because of disfluency, but because of difficulty with word finding.
You can feel free to email me at pamela dot terrell at gmail.com (no spaces and change "dot" and "at" to symbols) if you'd like to.
Wow - what great advice. Thanks Pam - so much. That is exactly what I needed - a sounding board to make me feel more comfortable in my decision to wait. I did also make a call to my Pediatrician who agreed with you.
It is hard for me not to run for help because I stuttored bad as a child and still sometimes as an adult. My son also had big problems, but turned out it was Sensory related - so, I think it is a very sensitive subject for me.
Right before this I saw I tremendous growth in her language skills, so I really do believe it is from the "language explosion" as you said.
Thanks again - I may email you if it continues.
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