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From: Barbara Mathers-Schmidt
Date: 11 Oct 2006
Time: 22:13:16 -0500
Remote Name: 24.22.193.82
Veronica, You’ve raised some interesting, and important, questions. I am wondering if you’ve ever had the opportunity to discuss this with your daughter’s speech-language pathologist (SLP). The SLP may be able to share observations about whether your daughter seems aware of stuttering when she stutters. Your daughter also may be able to fill you in on this. In general, very young children often are not aware of their stuttering in the early stages of stuttering development. Usually as they get older (certainly by age 8) they have the self-awareness skills to be aware of such behaviors. Even so, it is common for individuals who stutter to not notice, or at least not be bothered by, mild stuttering behaviors in the midst of a conversation. In a sense, they seem to get accustomed to stuttering and might not notice it (and associated behaviors) unless it interferes with the communication effort. Furthermore, many times a child who stutters just wants to get the message out, and not deal with the stuttering. You make two observations that (if accurate) are really quite positive, in terms of your daughter’s self-image as a communicator: 1) You note that “she prefers to just speak” and 2) “she prefers to not think about how she sounds.” It is great that she seems to want to talk with friends and family. It will be important to stay tuned into whether she is ever reluctant to talk or seems frustrated or embarrassed when she stutters, so that she can receive the support she needs. Her teachers and SLP might be able to shed some light on this. I’ll stop here, because I believe I’ve responded to the main question you’ve posed. Do you have other concerns you’d like to discuss? If you want to think about this some more, with input from panel members, you might describe your daughter’s stuttering severity, and the nature of the stuttering behaviors, and how other people react when she stutters. Is she currently participating in speech therapy?