Based on my experience, and the things I've been reading lately, I think the most important thing for a child who stutters is to not make a big deal out of it. Making the child self-conscious about their stutter is a surefire way to increase its severity. I'm 29 and stuttering has been a problem for me since I was around 10. I used to stutter even earlier than that, I am told, but I guess I didn't know that I did. But once I became aware that I *had a speech problem*, it has only been downhill. I know many others share this experience. So, by all means, do take your son to see a speech therapist to find out whether he has some kind of impairment, but be aware that the wrong professional can make matters much worse. Interview them first, without your son, and look for someone who is kind and understands this. Then see if your son feels at ease around them. It's best if he can be made to think of speech therapy as "playtime" or something else equally innocuous and unrelated to "speech therapy," as in, "there's something *wrong* with the way you speak and you are here to fix it." Also, I wouldn't worry about "speech techniques." All the techniques I learned (and I've learned and practiced all of them) have either proved ineffective right away, or showed some promise until they either stopped working or got incorporated into the stutter. In fact, these days I'm doubtful I would take my children to speech therapy at all (if I had any and they stuttered). I have been through a handful of them, and it didn't help a bit. The experience has given me a lot of insight into the physical aspects of my stutter but, as I said, self-consciousness is poison for a person who stutters. The more I know about the mechanics of speech, the more material I have to produce my stutter. The best thing I can do for you is to recommend these books, written by people who seem to have fully recovered: [Speech is a River](http://stutterers-anonymous.com/Download.html) and [Redefining Stuttering](http://www.mcguireprogramme.com/redefining-stuttering.php). Oh, and they're free to download. I think the first book is more appropriate for your situation, because the author had kids who didn't turn out to be stutterers even though she stuttered badly, and she mentions it briefly, and she also describes her stutter as feeling a block on her throat that made her have to force the words out. But the second book is more thorough, and both authors share a very similar perspective: stuttering is about stifled expression; or the mind getting in the way of speaking. A very common experience for people who stutter is to have moments or periods of great fluency. Often we are asked questions we answer without missing a beat, and we feel this happens because we didn't have time to fear stuttering before we could speak. So it's often said that if we could simply forget we stutter, we would be cured. To me, this is pretty compelling evidence that there's nothing wrong in our brain regarding speech production or auditory feedback. The problem is when our conscious mind gets in the way of it. For example, when professional sports people "choke" under pressure. They already know how to batter, or how to score a free throw or a penalty kick. But something in their mind kicks in that messes with what they already know how to do very well. This is the perspective those books offer on what stuttering really is, and I see it being the case for me completely. So I think the best you can do for you son is to read and understand them. Feel free to ask anything. **EDIT:** one more thing, I also recommend that you join the list/forum [Neuro-Semantics of Stuttering](http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/neurosemanticsofstuttering/). There's a lot of quality insights on stuttering there on a daily basis, and both authors of the books above are there. For example, Ruth Mead, the author of Speech is a River, just posted this in response to another parent trying to help their kids: > ...I think personal expression (even on paper) does amazing things for kids who stutter. When my daughter was two, we lived in a l5 room Victorian house and she fell all the way down the stairs. Later that evening, she stuttered. So that evening I got down on the floor with the kids with piles of paper and she kept saying "F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fall d-d-d-d-d-down ss-s-s-s-s-s-s-steps" over and over. I was terrified, of course. So I drew a picture of the stairway and she drew a blob that represented herself at the bottom of the stairs. And then she kept retracing and redrawing the steps over and over again. She kept that drawing stuff up for hours during the next month, and before the month was over, her stuttering was mostly gone. It was all gone in another month. Of course, I didn't make her conscious of her stutter....since I was so fearful of that because of what had happened to me.