• Home
  • My Story
  • Membership
  • Courses
  • Contact

Speech is Beautiful

My Family’s Experience with Preschool Stuttering: An SLP’s Story

Education· Tips

23 Jan
My son “D” pictured above was just about to turn three October 2015. See how cute and little he was? He was a sweetie who was going through some big developmental changes. And he started to stutter. Being a speech-language pathologist, I wasn’t as nervous or worried as I imagine other mothers of children who begin to stutter during the early childhood period. That’s because my graduate training taught me that 75% of children who stutter between the ages of 3 and 5 spontaneously recover without therapeutic intervention. He was making some developmental leaps around his birthday and I didn’t overthink the stuttering. “It could be because he is changing and growing so much,” I thought. However, I counseled my family on things we would do at home to make our home communication easier for our son. Here’s how I tried to make our home a stuttering-friendly safe haven:
  1. Education – I talked to my husband and my older son about what stuttering was. I told them about spontaneous recovery, but that there were other things we could do to make it a better, more-communication friendly environment.
  2. No interruptions – I told my husband and my older son not to interrupt D when he spoke. I wanted to be sure that if D had a moment of stuttering, he was not interrupted or rushed during the stutter.
  3. Take turns – I also advised everyone about making sure we did a better job taking turns as a family. So D could have his turn to speak and then another person would get their turn. This continues to be a work in progress, because I have talkative, opinionated spouse. My kids hear a lot of passionate dialogue at home and they sometimes get very excited about adding an opinion.
  4. Modeling taking my time – Lastly I’m modeled easy onsets and slow connected speech for D as much as I could. I wanted him to hear that I didn’t rush myself when I talked; I took my time. My hope was that he could hear that and mimic me.
  5. No teasing – I told everyone in the family not to make fun of D’s stuttering. There was a zero tolerance policy.

We waited it out and employed the techniques above. In my work I’ve seen kids recover from stuttering in the early childhood years. Also most speech pathologists won’t treat a child who stutters if the child has only been stuttering for six months or less.

Six months came and went and D was still stuttering. The severity fluctuated. Sometimes it would be very severe with lots of repetitions and other times there would be a pause for a day or so. He never produced blocks and there was no tension in his stuttering, just easy repetitions. I would wonder if he were recovering when the stuttering would disappear for a day, but then the stuttering would come back.

One variable that I believe impacted D was that my older son has a high vocabulary for his age. So in our home D has a model in his brother that is far beyond his abilities to even always understand what his older brother says.

We kept doing those techniques I mentioned above and delayed an evaluation or possible therapy. I kept being hopeful that my son would spontaneously recover from stuttering.

D turned four in the fall of 2016 and he still was stuttering. Around that time my dad, D’s grandpa, passed away suddenly. I was worried about D’s stuttering, but we had a lot going on and it fell to the background as we all managed our grief that fall and winter.

My husband was not worried and neither were any of my family members. But being the speech pathologist, I knew more than they did. Note: if my son were a patient of mine, I would have advised myself to go seek a speech therapy evaluation for him. A year had passed and it was time for a professional opinion. I considered it as well, but I really didn’t think we had the money for him to get an evaluation and attend speech therapy sessions. I was definitely a “bad” speech pathologist/mom, but my judgement was clouded because it was my own child. Additionally, I was depressed over the loss of my father and I was just getting through each day and each week.

Finally, when my son turned 4 1/2 and it been been 18 months since the onset of stuttering, I knew that he needed therapy. The summer was less than two months away and I decided that if  he was still stuttering that time I would get him evaluated and seek treatment from speech-language pathologist no matter the cost. I felt like we had tried 18 months of “light” interventions and it had yielded no visible results. There had been no change to my son’s word and phrase repetitions: they did not get worse, but they also did not go away.

In the months before the summer came, I decided it was at this time that I more aggressively tackle the stuttering. In addition to what we were already doing (above), here is what I did next:

  1. Smooth and bumpy speech – I sat my son down and told him about “bumpy” speech and “smooth” speech. This is a way of framing stuttering apart from “good or bad speech,” but a more neutral “smooth vs bumpy.” I was instructing, in a way a child can comprehend, what interruptions of your speech feel like to increase awareness. Up until this point, D had no idea what he was doing; he was completely unaware. D didn’t know what I was talking about, but he sat happily to listen to me.
  2. Repetition – I also had D repeat parts of the words or phrases that he would say when he stuttered. So if he said, “I I I want a dog,” I would let him finish (you always let people who stutter finish what they say), I would say it back to him (“Oh, you want a dog? Can you say ‘I want a dog’ again?”), and he would repeat it.
Why I decided to do more aggressive intervention at that time was because I wanted him to get better from the stuttering. It finally dawned on me that it was time. I decided that I could do more actual therapy with him because I had been successful with other clients. I figured it couldn’t hurt and if it did nothing, we could go through the evaluation process and set up treatment that summer
I worked with him for about a month. I didn’t make him repeat every utterance, but I would select a moments where I felt it was appropriate to practice. The stuttering got very severe for a few days and I was worried. Then it disappeared. I feel extremely lucky that D was either able to spontaneously recover or was impacted by the intervention that I did with him — I’ll never know what exactly happened that helped him recover. I definitely think that all families should seek the opinion of a certified speech-language pathologist in their state if they have a child who stutters. I don’t want you to wait like I did!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

« What is Vocal Fry? A Speech Path’s Point of View
Reflections on My Second Year Doing Teletherapy »

Comments

  1. Susie says

    February 1, 2018 at 3:09 pm

    It was helpful for me to read this! I’m also a speech/language pathologist and my son (who is in therapy for artic) began stuttering about 6 months ago. He’s 9 though, so I feel that he’s outside the norms for typical stuttering. He’s a kid who feels a lot of emotion and can be easily stressed. I think that impacts him the most. We’ve been doing the ideas you talked about in your article. It’s hard to see your child stutter, though! We are working through it, he will probably get therapy in school and we model at home. Thanks for your sharing.

    • Sarah Wu says

      February 9, 2018 at 1:38 pm

      Thanks for commenting! Starting at nine does seem different. I know that it was stressful for us. Hang in there! Wishing you all the best!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

Latest on Pinterest

  • Get hundreds of trials by having students say their target words and then coloring one square per word! These grids take multiple sessions to complete and you will end up with a beautiful mosaic of colors and patterns customized by the student. They can choose the colors or their favorite team. All you need are colored pencils! PRODUCT CONTENTS: 1) TINY GRIDS 2) MEDIUM GRIDS 3) LARGE GRIDS 4) PLAID PATTERN GRIDS EACH PACK INCLUDES ONE PAGE PER SOUND AND ONE PAGE OF STIMULUS WORDS
  • Using classic fables and nursery rhymes in speech therapy is a great way to teach story retell skills to young children, while continuing the tradition of oral story telling from our culture. 15 STORIES EACH CONTAIN: -Story Printable -Story Cards -Drawing to Describe -Writing to Describe PRODUCT CONTENTS Pg 3-6 – TARJETAS PARA CONTAR LOS CUENTOS Pg 7-12 – HICKORY DICKORY DOCK Pgs 13-17 – HUMPTY DUMPTY Pgs 18-24 – LA ARAÑA PEQUEÑITA Pg 25-30 – JUAN Y JUANITA and more!
  • Do you like knocking out multiple goals during speech therapy? Do you have kids who need to learn category vocabulary words and also benefit from fine motor practice? Each mini-book includes a list of the vocabulary words with boxes to check. Black-and-white is perfect for easy printing. These books will take multiple lessons to complete, which is great to use over multiple lessons. Students can add the mini-books to their portfolio of work or take the mini-books home
  • Olivia is a classic book adored by kids and also enjoyed by educators. Olivia covers the basic life skills PRODUCT CONTENTS: Pg 3-5 – El resumen del cuento Pgs 6-16 – Las acciones (Tarjetas, Escritura, Comparamos & Contrastamos) Pgs 17-28 –La ropa (Tarjetas, Escritura, Comparamos & Contrastamos) Pgs 29-41 – La rutina de la mañana (Tarjetas, Secuencias, Dibujando y Escribiendo) Pgs 42-52 –Vocabulario de la playa (Plurales, Coloreando, Comparamos & Contrastamos) All pages are black and white
  • Olivia is a classic book adored by kids and also enjoyed by educators. Olivia covers the basic life skills PRODUCT CONTENTS: Pg 3-5 – El resumen del cuento y ¿Qué pasó? Pgs 6-16 – Las acciones (Tarjetas, Escritura, Comparamos & Contrastamos) Pgs 17-28 –La ropa (Tarjetas, Escritura, Comparamos & Contrastamos) Pgs 29-41 – La rutina de la mañana (Tarjetas, Secuencias, Dibujando y Escribiendo) Pgs 42-52 –Vocabulario de la playa (Plurales, Coloreando, Comparamos & Contrastamos)
  • If you are treating phonological processes in Spanish, these flashcards are unique and ones you will refer to over and over again! CONTENTS (Color and Black & White): -14 pairs of cards for Velar Fronting -14 pairs Final Consonant Deletion -12 pairs Weak Syllable Deletion -10 pairs Cluster Reduction -12 pairs Initial Consonant Deletion -12 pairs Voicing TWO VERSIONS: 50 pgs color and 50 pages BW flashcards (quarter page size) 30 pgs color and 30 pgs BWflashcards (six per page)
  • CONTENTS (Color and Black & White): -14 pairs of cards -Velar Fronting -14 pairs of cards for Final Consonant Deletion -12 pairs of cards for Weak Syllable Deletion -10 pairs of cards for Cluster Reduction -12 pairs of cards for Initial Consonant Deletion -12 pairs of cards for Voicing TWO SIZE VERSIONS: 50 pgs color & 50 pgs BW quarter page size 30 pgs color & 30 pgs BW six per page
  • CONTENTS (Color and Black & White): -14 pairs of cards -Velar Fronting -14 pairs of cards for Final Consonant Deletion -12 pairs of cards for Weak Syllable Deletion -10 pairs of cards for Cluster Reduction -12 pairs of cards for Initial Consonant Deletion -12 pairs of cards for Voicing TWO SIZE VERSIONS: 50 pgs color & 50 pgs BW quarter page size 30 pgs color & 30 pgs BW six per page
  • Using classic fables and nursery rhymes in speech therapy is a great way to teach story retell skills to young children, while continuing the tradition of oral story telling from our culture. 15 STORIES EACH CONTAIN: -Story Printable -Story Cards -Drawing to Describe -Writing to Describe PRODUCT CONTENTS Pg 3-6 – TARJETAS PARA CONTAR LOS CUENTOS Pg 7-12 – HICKORY DICKORY DOCK Pgs 13-17 – HUMPTY DUMPTY Pgs 18-24 – LA ARAÑA PEQUEÑITA Pg 25-30 – JUAN Y JUANITA and more!

Copyright © 2022 · Website Design By Jumping Jax Designs

 

Loading Comments...