Stuttering Update

I haven't mentioned Pete's stuttering in a while. He's still seeing the school speech therapist once a week. She recently went to a stuttering conference and gave me lots of guidelines on how to help him, but I'm having such trouble! Pete stutters most when he's speaking too fast, but she says it's better not to just keep saying, "Slow down!" The key is for me to slow down my own speech and to pause before responding to him, all in an effort to slow down the pace of the whole conversation and make it more relaxed. I believe it must work, because I know she does it in their sessions, and she reports that he rarely stutters with her! I have an especially hard time remembering to pause.

She gave me a lot of great information, including the following links (in case anyone is interested): Friends: The National Association of Young People Who Stutter, The Stuttering Home Page, The National Stuttering Association, The Stuttering Foundation of America, and The Specialty Board on Fluency Disorders.

She wants us to continue the speech therapy in the summer, and she found someone who might be able to do it, but we haven't met him yet. She also told us that statistically speaking, most kids who outgrow their stuttering do so by the time they're 7, so we have to consider that Pete might not outgrow it. The great news is that he still doesn't seem bothered by it, even though he's definitely aware of it. His teacher says that he never hesitates to speak in class, and he's so well-liked that no one would ever dream of teasing him. Early in the year the speech therapist came in and spoke to the class about "Turtle Talk," which is how she describes slow, smooth speech (and how I refer to it at home when I do need to remind him to slow down). They all tried it and then drew pictures of turtles to hang up. One day just last week, Pete was speaking to the class and started to stutter. One of his pals very kindly reminded him, "Use your Turtle Talk, Pete!" That warmed my heart!

Comments

[scott]

I train with a guy at J. K. Lee who has a pretty pronounced stutter. He's probably 30-ish. Nice looking guy, trains hard, very friendly. I just have to wait for him to finish what he's saying sometimes. So I wait. No big deal. It doesn't seem to have affected his self-confidence as far as I can tell.

[Karen]

That's exactly what you're "supposed" to do. Some people feel the need to finish the word or sentence for the stutterer, which can (understandably) be very frustrating and irritating for the stutterer. I'm lucky (well, Pete's lucky!) that waiting just happens to be my natural response to his stuttering.

[James]

It's so great when kids try to help other kids!

[Maribel]

My younger boy was a bedwetter. I took him to a pediatrician who told me to bring him back at the age of 6 (he was 5 at the time) if the problem persisted but she felt he would outgrow it. And he did, immediately upon his 6th birthday - it was like a miracle. I was very anxious but it turned out fine. It probably will for you as well (I'll keep my fingers crossed).