STUTTERING

Stuttering is a disorder of fluency in which a child is not able to produce fluent speech. It usually begins from 3-5 years of age; however, the frequency and severity of stuttering varies among children.

A child starts speaking fluently by 2-3 years of age which coincides with their intensive language learning age. During this phase, it is a normal for a child to have a few “disfluencies” (less than 10%) while speaking, which is known as normal disfluency. Normal disfluency disappears mostly in few months but if it persists after 4 years of age, it leads to stuttering.

The main difference between normal disfluency and stuttering is that there are no secondary behaviours, such as muscle tension or struggle, observed when you child has normal disfluency. The child is unaware of the disruption and therefore might not develop any anxiety or fear. In contrast, a child with stuttering is aware of their problems and might develop anxiety and frustration as a secondary behaviour.

The major signs of stuttering are repetitions (sound, syllable, word and phrase repetition), fixed postures (silent blocking, prolongations) and secondary behaviours such as associated movements (eye blinking, head and body movements, tremors etc.), tension (excessive muscle tension in neck or shoulder area) and avoiding words, phrases, situations or people which causes stuttering.

A child with mild stuttering may show similar disfluencies as a child with normal disfluency but may have more repetitions and higher frequency of repetitions. As the severity of stuttering increases, the child has higher frequency of repetitions as well as more repetitions with severe secondary behaviours.

• Does your child repeats sounds such as F..F…F..Fan?
• Does your child repeat words such as I..I..I want to go home?
• Does your child have difficulty speaking in a particular situation or place?
• Does your child get frustrated when not able to speak fluently?
• Does your child prolong sounds such as Wa..aa..ater?
• Does your child have secondary behaviours such as head movements, eye blinking etc. while speaking?

If your child is facing any of the above-mentioned problems, please contact us.