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Home › Articles › Development › Stuttering

Stuttering

When It Becomes a Problem

By Kimberly Austin

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Andrea Cook, 19, stuttered as a child. Her stuttering did not stem from a traumatic experience but worsened under stress.

"Stress causes the stuttering to become worse," she says. "Even now when I become nervous, stressed or upset, I begin to stutter."

There are some children who will stutter no matter how calm the surrounding environment is and others who will not stutter no matter how chaotic their environment may be. Fortunately, 80 percent of children who experience developmental stuttering recover, Kelly says, noting that girls recover sooner than boys do.

Cook recovered before entering kindergarten with the help of a family friend who was a college student studying speech disorders. He made Cook talk while he patiently listened to her. "I remember he talked to me as if I was an adult, and I was on his level," she says.

 

How to Handle It
Experts at the Stuttering Foundation or America recommend that parents listen to what their child is saying and respond to the child not to the stuttering. They also recommend that parents use a relaxed rate of conversation, make affirming responses like smiling or saying "uh-huh," make eye contact with the child and allow the child to finish the word. Parents should also avoid saying things like, "stop that," or, "say it right." The child is already frustrated and that frustration should be acknowledged.

 

Most important, a parent should not tease the child or respond negatively. "Parents should not imitate the child, tease the child or allow others to do that, even in a good-natured way," Kelly says. Cook remembers not only being frustrated but also being "worried about what others thought of me."

For most young children, stuttering resolves spontaneously in the first 12 to 18 months after they start stuttering. Cook says she naturally outgrew stuttering and learned to control it by speaking slower and thinking before she spoke.

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