Stuttering

[MissMusic]

This might be a stupid question, but I know J12'ers have some info about it.
My kid is stuttering.  I don't know if its just that her brain is moving faster than her mouth, or she's having trouble forming the sentence, but its been happening all week.  It happens...frequently.  Even when she's not excited, she can't seem to get the sentence out.

Is this something I need to be concerned about or is it developmentally normal?

[jennmm]

It can be developmentally normal and it can be their brain working faster than their mouths. My son stuttered when he was 3ish. It went on for several weeks. The pedi said it's not an uncommon phase and if it turned into months and didn't get better, he'd look into speech therapy. I would give it some time. Maybe, remind her to slow down and think about what she wants to say. If it keeps on, call the doc.

[okiemama]

My nephew went through a stage where he was stuttering a lot right around the time he turned two. It lasted just long enough to start to get everyone slightly concerned and then it just quit. Idk if it was a developmental thing or he was too excited or just experimenting with sounds and/or trying to convey emphasis.

Eta: not sure how helpful that is, but at least one incident where it tuned out to be nothing.

[laurski81]

Henry will stutter occasionally and I haven't mentioned anything to the pedi or anything but I truly believe that it is because he is just going so fast, and has so much he wants to get out that things get jumbled and he trips over his words. Like jennmm mentioned I usually just ask him to slow down.

[summergirl1211]

MissMusic, maybe make a note of when you noticed it start and keep track to see if it stops. If it continues for a month (or whatever period makes you concerned) then talk to your pedi. Riley's doing this now too, mostly when she starts a sentence with "I want" (which is always, I think). I think she's just trying to figure out what the next word is.

Hopefully it's nothing!

[MissMusic]

summergirl1211: thats what I'm doing!

She's stuttering all the time. "D-d-d-daddy, want some w-w-w-water in a cup with me?"

and like, "I can't f-f-f-find my panda!" I'm being neurotic.

[candcmommy]

I agree with the above that I wouldn't let it get to me now but if it lasted more than a few weeks I would ask someone about it to be on the safe side ?

[candcmommy]

I don't k ow why that face and the "?" Showed up! It should have been ?

[candcmommy]

Ok so I don't know how to edit and it did it again! It should be a regular smiley and an "!"

[meow84]

I am finally getting around to getting into this place. I wanted to say that Kiera started stuttering right around her 2nd birthday. It would come and go, but then in December-ish it seemed to get worse and didn't really go away. I took her in for a speech eval a few weeks ago and now she is in speech therapy for it. She will stutter with pretty much every sentence and some words are worse than others. When it first started, she would get upset and tense up trying to get the word out, but luckily that hasn't happened much lately. She has some "risk factors" that led the therapist to believe that she will benefit from therapy vs just letting it ride out (family history of stuttering, long episodes of it occurring without getting better). It seems to be that her language is so advanced that her mouth muscles can't keep up. The therapist was explaining that the mouth actually has a ton of development that needs to happen in order for speech to occur. When doing the assessment, K was up to 4.5 - 5 year old language level before the therapist was like, ok we will just stop here. She is just trying to get so much out and her little mouth and the neurological circuits involved can't handle it.

The therapist also feels like she shouldn't need therapy very long - the goal is to just get her to be able to make her words "smooth" vs "bumpy" and teach all of us ways that we can cue her to do so. I may be a bit neurotic as well, but kids are dicks and it hurts my heart to think of her getting made fun of for this if it doesn't get better. If you are really worried, look around and see if any places near you do free screenings. It isn't a full assessment, but they will do a quick screen to see if she would benefit from a more in depth assessment.

[aylafsu1881]

I remember meow84 posting some good info about this. I am glad she saw the post and commented above. LO stutters occasionally but I figure it is a developmental stage since it is not all the time and not on certain words/letters.

[justbeth]

We went through this a few months ago. I asked here and the speech therapist at her school and was told it's completely normal at this age and not to worry until it's been going on for 6 months. Their vocabulary can develop faster than their oral muscle control. I let it be, only helping her when she was getting obviously frustrated about not being able to get something out. Almost 3 weeks later she completely stopped and hasn't done it since.

[ultramonkey]

I just started noticing M stuttering when he's trying to string words together. I've been driving myself a little nutty thinking about whether it's just another normal part of developmental. After reading the replies it seems like its not uncommon.