Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Stuttering?

Both my kids have stuttered around the age of 3. DS8 does not stutter now and it was only short lived. DD2.5 is stuttering a bit here and there but maybe it's not a 'true' stutter as it definitely sounds like starting a sentence and then restarting.

What I had read about stuttering for DS seemed to work great: just don't mention it. If I noticed he was stuttering, I would stop what I was doing and just look straight at him and wait. I wouldn't say anything but just give him time to come to what he wanted to say.
I know it only lasted a few weeks for him, and using the same idea, the stuttering has already diminished for dd in just a few weeks as well. I recall reading that mentioning the phenomenon to the child can eventually make them feel self-conscious and end up making them feel even more like they have to get things 'just right'. It makes a lot of sense to me, anyway.

I'm late to this thread i saw it and forgot to reply.

My DP is a 'talks to fast for his mouth' stutterer. E.g his mind races ahead of his mouths ability to produce the sound/words. His is quite pronounced, it can talk him 6-8 repeats of part of the sentance to say something simple e.g 'take your book and put it on your book case' would be 'take your book and put, and put, and put, and put, and put it on your book case'. Occasionally i touch his arm or something and it seems to help him slow down, but for the most part i do and say nothing. He is perfectly aware of what he is doing and also completely inable to stop it.

My DS4 during spurts does the same thing, expect 2x as bad, it can take him ages to get out something like 'can i have some juice'. I do the same with him just wait patiently till he finishes. Or if he gets very frustrated i gently tell him to stop and try again.

http://www.stammering.org/parents_info.html

Our DS tends to only do it on the beginning of sentences which is interesting. But lately he's getting better. Just this morning he said "um. let me think." and then said his sentence. He did stutter, but not as bad. He's listening to his parents to some degree because that's what we (gently) told him to do when he gets real excited.

JB

I can understand getting siblings to wait would be quite hard, i have no help for that as DD is not quite verbal enough to be a problem in waiting him out.

I find it interesting that many kids have an issue getting the start of thier sentances out, whereas in our house it it usually the middle. I watch for signs of stuttering/stammering that may require 'help' because my DP can be really bad. Also i have what i can only call 'blanking' issues, where 1/2 way through a sentance i completely forget what i was talking about - i think this is becuase my brain has raced on to other assoiated ideas and links it forgets the starting points.

My kids haven't alot going for them eh?