Stammering

As a parent myself, I know how confusing it is raising children in the early years. If everything develops smoothly you can relax and enjoy but if something different happens, you worry and need to know where to go for advice.

Stammering is one of those problems. Between the ages of about two to four it is quite normal for a child to hesitate, use "um"s and "er"s and repeat words. It is a period of intense speech and language development so quite natural for slips to happen. However,  in about five per cent of children, stammering, or stuttering as it is also known, can occur. Here the flow of speech tends to be disrupted by breaks in sounds and syllables and there might be silent pauses or blocks where your child seems to be trying to push the word out. This may seem to come and go and although it can disappear altogether in some children, one per cent of adults continue with about four times as many men stammering as women.

One of the commonest questions I get asked is about the cause of stammering. Unfortunately we still do not have a definitive answer to this but we do know it is not caused in any way by you as a parent. It is possible that there is a problem with the physical mechanism to do with fluency and we also know that it often runs in families. Some people think that there may be an underlying psychological cause but we don't have evidence for this although we know that stammering does affect people psychologically. For example, a child might become more anxious about going to school and adults might choose jobs that don't involve so much talking.

The most important thing that a parent can do is to refer their child to a speech and language therapist as soon as possible. There is overwhelming research evidence that if we can work with you and your child in the pre-school years, then the chances of it continuing are very much reduced. Therapy usually involves training parents to carry out the therapy with their child through play.

If your child is older, speech and language therapy is still important as he or she can still learn to reduce the struggle in speaking and will benefit psychologically from meeting other young people who stammer in group therapy. Problems at school can arise and we can discuss how best to manage them.

If you are worried you should contact your local speech or language therapist. You can do this directly without referral from your GP.

Another excellent source of information is through the British Stammering Association.