postr/StutterJanuary 21, 2021

Does my 3 year old have a stutter? And if so what do you think I should do about it?

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Does my 3 year old have a stutter? And if so what do you think I should do about it? Hello all :) Please excuse me I have absolutely no experience with stuttering so I'm not sure what to do about this possibility so I wanted to get advice from you all. When I took my now 3 1/2 year old into the doctor for his 18 month check up the doctor was concerned with his lack of speech. She said the general rule is "18 words by 18 months" and he had maybe 3 or 4. She recommended a speech therapist and pathologist whom we then went to and after awhile they diagnosed him with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. He was with them until he aged out of the program at age 3. He is now on par with his peers when it comes to vocabulary he knows and talks all the time now although he does sometime speak quietly and we have to ask him to speak up to hear him. The problem with this now is that he cannot seem to make any of the 'back of throat sounds' Like he says "Bive me" instead of "Give me" or "Titty Tat" instead of "Kitty Cat" but since he aged out of therapy I'm not sure if I should be worried about this or not but I'm hoping getting him into pre-school after the covid vaccines roll out will help with that. Now onto the problem that I am asking you all about. I think he has developed a stutter and I don't know if this is something that he was always going to have or if it has something to do with his other speech problems. He doesn't do it all the time, mostly when he is excited to tell me something but sometimes when he is not it happens too. The prime example is sometimes when he tries to talk to me he will say "Mo-mom-mom-mo-mom-mommy!" Or he will get half way through the moms then stop and start over and he will start the stutter again or just say mommy. I haven't said anything to him about it, I've just been waiting for him to finish what he wants to say. At the moment he seems to just do it with names, he's done it with the start of his brothers names too. Is this something I should be concerned about or just ignore it and hope he grows out of it? Should I call attention to it and ask him to stop or try to help him sound things out whenever I hear it? I have read stories online of people being assholes to other people who stutter and are just trying to get their words out and I'm super scared he's going to get made fun of or lose his self-esteem when he gets older because of all his speech problems. I want to do what I can to help build him up and fix it now but I'm just not sure the right path to take about this. Can any of you give me any advice? Is this stuttering or just normal childhood talking? I have 4 kids and his 2 older siblings never had this problem nor does his younger.

Themes

Parent & CaregiverSpeech & Stuttering

Subthemes

Early Concern & OnsetHome SupportRepetitions & Prolongations