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From: Lynne Shields
Date: 23 Oct 2006
Time: 12:50:11 -0500
Remote Name: 68.143.177.2
I have worked with two bilingual children who stutter and two adults. All four cases were different, so I think it is important to remember that there is not one correct way to manage stuttering for this population. One of my child clients was actually a teen. He stuttered much more in his native language; he also stuttered in English. It turned out that the difference for him was that his father made him nervous and did not deal with the stuttering in a way that allowed his teenaged son to feel comfortable with stuttering, hence the increased stuttering in the first language, and primarily when talking with his father. The second child was 5 years old and stuttered pretty equally in his primary language and both of his second languages. One of my adult clients stuttered in both languages, but stuttered more in English. She decided, and I was inclined to agree, that this was because she had a more restricted vocabulary in English and tended to manage her stuttering by substituting words. This is an area, as Nan mentioned, that needs much further study. Regards, Lynne