Preschooler has stuttering problem - any experience with this? (1 Viewer)

[Otis]

A few months before our daughter turned 3 she started stuttering a bit. She previously had been advanced in her speech and was sailing. For the first couple days of it, we thought it was just shtick, and we laughed along with it and egged her on. (stupid, but she didn't do it often, and we really thought she was doing it on purpose).

It persisted, and at some points got worse, other times more recently to the point where she would get frustrated midway through a sentence and just give up and say "daddy I can't find the words." Not a big deal in the grand scheme, but still sort of heartbreaking each time that happened.

We brought her to some quack speech therapists who spent just as much time talking about my wife and my feelings and praising our loving family unit and trying to put us at ease as they converted to a used car salesman shtick and tried to get us to commit to weekly (costly) visits. Felt slimy, and they basically said she'd grow out of it, so we didn't go back and figured we would just watch it.

It's been about 6 months since it started, and in the past two days has gotten really bad. She'll struggle for 30 seconds or longer to get out each word, she gets so frustrated and red in the face and shakes, and the volume of her voice goes up as she is trying to force the word out, until she's practically screaming at the end when she finally gets it. Then she'll look sad and frustrated and out her thumb in her mouth and stop talking. On two occasions in the past 3 days she's been so frustrated she has just broken down crying mod sentence and stormed off. Today she got so upset that she stopped talking, and is now just pointing at things to communicate with my wife.

She's otherwise a really smart, happy, healthy kid. My wife called the pediatrician today and he sounded concerned, said we should call one of his two speech pathologists (they take insurance and sound like actual doctors) and get her seen. We are moving to a new town in a couple months, and the school district there will have an early intervention program where they provide good services on this for free, so we'll access that when we can.

In the meantime just wondering if others have had kids with this issue and if you have any advice. I understand they say stuttering can be common in preschool years and that they can often grow out of it, but this has gone on 6 months now and we never imagined it would get this bad, I believe it's well past common moderate stuttering.

TIA

 

[mr roboto]

Sorry to hear Otis. No experience with it. Just be patient when dealing with her. Don't let he see that's it's concerning or frustrating to you.

 

[Otis]

Sorry to hear Otis. No experience with it. Just be patient when dealing with her. Don't let he see that's it's concerning or frustrating to you.

. Thanks and yes that's what we have been doing, just being patient and never rushing her and when she's frustrated we tell her it's OK and happens to us all.

 

[AAABatteries]

My oldest daughter struggled with something that was like a lisp - had trouble with certain was sounds. We took her to a speech therapist and after a few months she was fine. Maybe you just got a bad therapist. Did your kids pediatrician recommend them?

Good luck!

 

[1234]

Try having her whisper if she feels worked up while she communicates. People don't stutter when they whisper.

 

[shadyridr]

Speech therapist will do wonders IMO

 

[EYLive]

Try having her whisper if she feels worked up while she communicates. People don't stutter when they whisper.

Is this true?

 

[McGarnicle]

I stuttered really bad as a kid. No one really did anything about it and eventually I grew out of it. Today, other than multiple addictions and crippling anxiety,

 

[Rooster]

My 3 year old went through an extended stuttering stage 6 or so months ago. My wife talked to the doctor about it and we were told to ignore it, don't acknowledge or give her any reason to feel self conscious about it. She mentioned that it's not uncommon at this time (she was just about to turn 3) and that their brains sometimes work a little faster than they can speak and this is the outcome. It was really bad for a month or so and she seems to have grown out of it like the doc said, it comes back every once in a while but not more than once a month I'd say. We did pretty good about telling everyone not to acknowledge it, except for the one time she said "la - la - la - la - la" and I legitimately think she's singing, so I join in and then realize when she finishes her word that it was just the stutter.

 

[Witz]

Sorry to hear you're going through this. As others have mentioned, speech therapists actually do do wonders. We're based in NJ and our son was having some speech issues as well around 2 years of age and he took part in our early intervention program. Through it he worked with a main speech therapist as well as others. After about a year of that, it just clicked and he is talking perfectly fine now (going on 6 years old now). Was it the therapist or did he just figure things out? I can't say for certain but I'd like to think the speech therapy helped.

One thing to note (and while I'm familiar with NJ, I checked and it looks like it's the same for NY as well) - to be eligible for the 'early intervention' program the child must be under the age of 3 (which based on your post, it seems your daughter is age 3 now). While you might not be eligible for the 'early intervention' program specifically, obviously check with your district. Even if not eligible for that specific program, paying for a speech therapist is well worth the cost in the long run.

Good luck with things.

http://www.health.ny.gov/community/infants_children/early_intervention/