Parents and Children Who Stutter: The pleasures and pains of working together

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Re: Quick Question

From: Rosemarie
Date: 15 Oct 2010
Time: 16:42:56 -0500
Remote Name: 86.129.241.142

Comments

Hi Michelle, a quick question but I’m not sure there is a quick answer! We are talking about children of up to about six or seven years and as you say many, or even all, will be aware of their stuttering or have noticed that their speaking is different to that of those around them. However, I am not at all sure that they accept or need to accept that they are a stutterer. So children usually know that they stutter but that is not the same as being a stutterer. ‘Bumpy’ is a good way of describing what happens when they repeat sounds or syllables, ‘stretchy’ a good way of describing prolongations and these words don’t usually carry additional negative connotations. They just describe the way the words sound. Stuttering and stutterer can mean all sorts of different things and are sometimes used as a very negative label or description. We want to help children deal with the glitches in their talking in as practical and unemotional way as possible. Heightened emotion may make self-correction very much more difficult for children and the more emotion attached to moments of stuttering the more quickly these behaviours may become established. So I think what we are doing is giving the child some information about their talking without any other subtext. Of course if a child shows a preference that the word stutter rather than bumpy then we would go along with that and assume that as they learn to smooth their stutters so they feel less anxious and concerned about them. I don’t think I’m splitting hairs, I think the words we use are important, as you suggest, and words that are descriptive and non-judgmental can be helpful to children as they learn to separate behaviour from feelings of self-worth. Best wishes


Last changed: 10/15/10