Fluency

Speech therapists help children who stutter improve their fluency. Approximately 5% of children will stutter for a period of time during their early childhood. Approximately 1% of children will stutter throughout their life. Speech therapists can use a variety of different therapy strategies to help improve fluency and make speech easier for those who stutter.

For young, pre-school age clients, therapy begins by helping the child learn the difference between “bumpy” and “smooth” speech. Young children often do not realize they stutter. They may not respond when you talk to them about it as they don’t understand what you are referring to. Your speech therapist can help guide you in supporting your child’s fluency by educating you on appropriate ways to bring it to your child’s attention and using child-friendly prompts and cues to improve their fluency. Although we may use child-friendly language such as “bumpy” to bring stuttering awareness to the child, we recommend that you freely talk about “stuttering.” It is important to openly talk to your child about stuttering so that this topic does not become avoided as your child gets older. Desensitize the word and topic at a young age to help prevent negative feelings about stuttering as your child gets older.

For school-age children and young teenagers, therapy will focus on a variety of research-based strategies to help improve your child’s fluency. Children in this age group often lack confidence in their speech due to stuttering. We recommend you monitor your child’s mental health and inform your child’s therapist if you feel your child is avoiding social interactions, avoiding speaking or reading in front of their class, or demonstrating limited self-confidence. These feelings can be addressed in therapy, and this helps your therapist better understand your child’s needs. As with younger children, we recommend you openly talk about stuttering and not avoid the word. Your therapist will guide you in helping your child implement therapeutic strategies and improving self-confidence within your child.

There are a lot of different breathing and speech strategies that your child will learn during therapy to help reduce dysfluencies. Once they have been taught different strategies, the therapist will work with your child to figure out which ones help them the most. Therapy is highly individualized to best support your child!

A few tips…

• Don’t tell your child to “slow down” when they stutter. Instead, listen patiently while your speaks and model a slower rate of speech when you talk to your child. Your child is much more likely to reduce their rate of speech if you talk to them at a reduced rate of speech rather than constantly telling them to “slow down.”

• Give your child six “positive cues” for every one “negative cue”. For example, you might let your child finish what they are saying, then say “hmm that one was a little bumpy.” You won’t acknowledge “bumpy” speech again until you have acknowledged six times that your child used “smooth” speech by saying something like “Wow, that was really good smooth speech.”

• Model the breathing techniques your therapist teaches you and your child so that your child can be familiarized with these techniques outside of the therapy room.

• Openly talk about stuttering within your household or with other family members and friends. This helps make it seem like it’s not a big deal. This can really improve self-confidence as your child ages!