My character is a young college sophomore with a moderate to severe stuttering problem. He has been in therapy since his problem was first diagnosed early in life and can often speak fluently if imperfectly. But there are times, especially when he gets tense or emotional, that his stuttering becomes severe to the point of not allowing him to get even a single word out. He carries a pad of paper on which to write his communications in those especially tough times. He comes from a loving family, a father and mother devoted to helping in every way. He has a brother who is three years older who has always been his champion and defender against teasing and the like. The brothers are very close. The older brother often finishes his younger brother's sentences -- almost always correctly -- to keep their conversations moving when the younger boy has trouble. Both boys know that the older brother shouldn't do that, but they've been doing it all their lives. It seems a natural way for them to communicate and the younger boy is relieved that there is someone with whom he doesn't have to struggle to communicate. The younger boy has a burning need to express himself that has been stymied by his stuttering. He is changing his major to dance to that end. Though he sometimes wishes he could become invisible while trying to speak, he delights in the attention of others when he dances. How am I doing? Does any of this seem off the mark? A question or two:

Anyway, when she turned 2 years old. I thought I should have her seen by the pediatrician. And her response was, don't worry about it. She will grow out of it, plus no one will see her until she is in at least 1st grade. But, the problem I have is she didn't even try to speak to my daughter to understand what I was trying to say. Now, it has been several months since I have taken her to the doctor and the bigger the vocabulary, the more she stutters. And it isn't on the big words she stutters, it is the normal everyday words.

I would like to help my daughter with her speech now if I can while she is still young and doesn't go to school. I can just imagine the stress of peers making fun of one who has this problem. And if I can help it I would like to get help and see if we can help her before she has to go through that. My personal opinion is that she isn't too young to help She is very capable of listening and understanding what people are trying to tell her, and I can tell that she gets frustrated every now and then and it breaks my heart.

Please let me know if you have any helpful advice.

For a few weeks we just made a point of listening carefully and patiently to her and not interrupting, while hoping and assuming that it would soon go away by itself. But this doesn't seem to be happening, so I've started researching the subject by contacting the two stuttering foundations and combing the Web. We're now on a waiting list for therapy.

I remember stuttering mildly when I was in high school for a year or two, and my wife's sister stuttered somewhat more when she was growing up. There were no unusual changes or stresses in my daughter's life during the time when she started stuttering, except perhaps that her sister just turned two and has become extremely active and verbal (and competitive for parents' attention).

I'd welcome any input about our situation, but my main question is this: how unusual is it for a child to "suddenly" start stuttering at this age? Are there any statistics about how children like this respond to therapy, and the likelihood of recovery? So far as I can tell she has not yet been teased about her stuttering, and her classroom teacher is supportive and very willing to read about the subject. Her friends are sticking with her too.

She can converse easily at a casual level, without any dysfluency. She avoids reading in class. When I asked her to read a short passage, she sat and looked at the material, then looked at me and said,"I can't." She does not have a reading difficulty. I asked her then to read silently, then just tell me what it was about. Same thing. I don't observe any tension at all. I do see some lip movement, not tense, when reading silently. I'm sure she has manged to find ways around class presentations, and is fine conversationally and socially, so the problem is masked. She could not initiate with air flow, easy speech or any of that kind of thing. I'm trying to find school appropriate references to this variation of stuttering, and treatment directions. She wants to work on it.

She is bilingual and does the same thing in her first language. As most children from her cultural background, she is typiccally very quiet in school, so it has not seemed unusual for her to remain quiet in class. Her English is very good.

It was also mentioned that this is genetic. I pretty much froze in my tracks. And, this morning, coincidentally, I happened to catch the closing words of another TV show--about Tourette's!--and heard it stated that the gene can't be detected and that it may start as late as age 18...

I don't know what to think--or whether to tell my daughter, who would, I think, decide not to have more children if this is a real threat. If I tell her what I suspect, she will spend the rest of her baby's childhood and early adulthood living in fear of this and watching constantly for signs of this condition beginning. I have not even told my husband and do not plan to, as this baby is the darling of his heart and he would never have another easy moment. I think I may have to live with this fear all alone rather than reveal it to anyone at all--but what if my daughter decides to have more children--how can I tell her this--and how can I not tell her?

I hope you might be able to steer me to some source of information--I have not been able to concentrate on it long enough to search carefully and find out. I apologize for pouring this out to you--I am just so shocked and so scared.