St-ut-ter-ing in children

Stuttering is fairly common in children and more boys stutter than girls. This speech disorder scars the confidence of children and the sooner speech therapy is resorted to better it is for the confidence of the child. Dr. Asha Agarwal, eminent speech therapist working at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital writes----

The first time when I met Madhukar, he had come to my clinic with his mother. He was tugging at her sari while she talked to me and I saw a six-year-old boy with a thick mop of unruly black hair and sad eyes. His mother shared that Madhukar didn’t like to go to school these days. She was quick to clarify that he was a good student who usually got ‘A’ in all his written work at school. But, he had become a loner, refrained from meeting with his friends and was reluctant to participate in oral tests at school. Whenever Madhukar would open his mouth to answer, normally he would take a second longer to speak the word which gave an opportunity to his teacher to correct and his fellow classmates to sneer.

Like Madhukar, hundreds of children lose confidence in their capabilities because of stuttering that hampers their development. Learning to speak is a liberating experience for a child as it allows him to express his feelings. But speech becomes a deterrent to his development when each time he opens his mouth he fears that someone is going to correct him or people will make fun of him. Stammering usually gets detected in children by the time they turn 3 to 4 years old, because this is the time when they develop a vocabulary of words. But, I have come across episodes of stuttering in a two-year-old child. Initially stuttering is episodic; it comes and goes.

Contrary to myths, one cannot outgrow stuttering. In fact, if it does not get cured it can leave psychological scars in the child’s mind. Children with stuttering begin to lose confidence and resort to gestures to communicate. Studies have time and again reiterated that stuttering runs in families.

Boys stutter more than Girls. In 30 years of my experience as speech counsellor, I have seen thousands of cases and ratio of boys to girls is 70-30. However, girls stutter at an earlier age than boys. Emotions and stammering connect. Often, children who speak normally might stammer if they are agitated, afraid or under stress.

How speech therapy helps

Speech therapy helps in lowering the stutter by using various techniques to develop fluent speech that reduce anxiety levels of children, which helps them to talk more fluently and confidently.

• Relaxation – To co-ordinate breathing and reduce oral pressure.
• Phonation – co-ordinate breathing with articulators with soft contacts
• Automatic speech – to practice technique effortlessly
• Reading – short stories in simple sentences with voice continuity.
• Reading and Narration
• Conversation in close-set with strangers.
• Telephonic conversation
• Conversation in different situation like public gathering, presentation etc.
• Maintenance and follow up
• Parents involvement

Coming back to Madhukar, he regained his confidence when he learned to speak without stammering. Sometimes he does stammer when he is too angry and for these moments his mother hands him a glass of water to cool off. He looks forward to go to school and has huge gang of friends.