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From: Ken St. Louis
Date: 10/9/00
Time: 12:13:21 PM
Remote Name: 157.182.12.51
Dear Ms. (or Mr.) Saavedra,
I’m sorry I can’t tell for sure if you are the mother or father from your message. It doesn’t matter; my answer is the same. Actually this is the second answer I have drafted; the first one got lost in cyberspace last Friday before I posted it.
From you description, it appears that your son is manifesting whole-word repetitions. Are these "normal disfluencies" or are they instances of real "stuttering?" Whole-word repetitions, especially those that are single syllable words at the beginning of sentences, indeed are an ambiguous case—often they are normal but sometimes they are stuttering. My best guess is that your son is in the beginning stages of stuttering. I say this for three reasons: (1) you are concerned and have noticed that he has "difficulty communicating" (2) his teacher has noticed a problem as well (and teachers hear enough normal children to realize when these disfluencies seem to cross the line to constitute a problem), and (3) he has been doing this for at least a year.
My recommendation is to take him to see a qualified speech-language pathologist for an evaluation. May I suggest you take a look at my response to Lisa Webb for some tips on finding such al person? This way, you will have a professional opinion and not be obliged to guess on your own.
I wholeheartedly agree with Nan Ratner’s response to you regarding the "unlikelihood" that your son’s bilingualism has any important role in the cause of his difficulty speaking.
Good luck.
Ken