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From: Dale Williams
Date: 10/19/00
Time: 1:43:52 PM
Remote Name: 131.91.248.210
Betty Lou,
To help your daughter's speech motor skills catch up to her advanced language, make speaking an easy & relaxed task for her. If she really is susceptible to stuttering, you don't want to overload the system (i.e., ask her to perform verbally in ways that are beyond her present skills).
Re. the TV, occasionally that's a factor in that some shows may excite a child which leads to long strings of rushed (& usually loud) speech. If you're not noticing that, I wouldn't worry about the TV.
Re. what else you can do, anything that keeps communication stress low, e.g., use a relaxed rate yourself with plenty of pauses, don't fire multiple questions at her, etc. The Stuttering Home Page (linked to this conference) & Stuttering Foundation of America web sites have a lot of parental advice. It sounds as if you're doing a lot of the right things already, given your description of how you talk and laugh about TV shows.
I don't see any reason to change the way you discipline her, assuming your present method doesn't involve putting pressure on her speech.
How long have the speech behaviors been going on?
Dale