Stuttering Therapy: Activity for the Busy Family!

Busy families are like busy, lively ant hills, bustling with industry and activity. Moms and Dads work. There is a lot of coming and going. Kids have outside activities such as sports and scouting. Life is hectic and fast-paced.

In busy families, communication is compressed and task-oriented. Siblings can compete for parental attention and talk time. Fast-paced conversation, interruptions, rapid-fire questions, and full schedules can put pressure on the child who stutters.

Pressure and stress aren't necessarily bad; after all you want to teach your children to cope with reality. But for the child who stutters it can helpful to raise awareness of the communication styles in your home, and  reduce the pressure where possible; e.g. take water out of the stuttering bucket.

Over to You

One fun family activity to support a child who stutters is to reduce pressure in a fun way, where everyone participates. Try setting a timer on your phone for five minutes and practicing just one of these rules while having dinner, or playing a game.

1.    Listen without interrupting or having side conversations.

2.    Pause after speaking, to give think time.

3.    Slow rate of speech (but not too slow).

4.    Listen with appreciation and respect.

Talk about it afterwards. Which one was hard?  Which one was easy?

What can you do to reduce some of the pressure in your home?

Stuttering Therapy: Making Friends with Speech Man

Sometimes stuttering just happens. You often hear that phrase in the stuttering community. One parent recently described a “puzzled look” that passes over her young daughter's face when she stutters. Stuttering seems to happen out of nowhere.

For many reasons, including demystifying stuttering, speech therapy encourages people who stutter to  become "experts in their own talking" as one of my teachers puts it. Speech therapists working with school-aged children use non-scary anatomical drawings and fun activities to teach a child about the speech mechanism, including:

• respiration
• phonation
• articulation

A child who is experiencing a "silent block" is unable to produce a sound. Mouth open, body straining, he or she seems to hang in the space between thought and speech. Learning that the vocal folds produce sound (phonation) with the help of air from the lungs (respiration) can empower the child and reduce feelings of helplessness. The child can begin to learn and apply strategies to deal with silent blocks. Knowledge is power.

A child who stutters on words beginning with /p/ might be experiencing tension in the lips. Learning that /p/ is produced with the lips can help that child get a handle on what is happening so he or she can learn to control it with a speech strategy. Knowledge is power.

I've used crafting with macaroni shapes, cut and paste activities, worksheets, and coloring activities to build models that help teach the anatomy and physiology of the speech mechanism. I also ask children to explain the process of respiration, phonation, and articulation to me, and to family members.

One of my typical fluency therapy goals is: "Will explain and model the process of respiration, articulation, and phonation with 3 or fewer cues, to two or more people, over five sessions."

The Bucket Analogy: What Causes Stuttering?

 I often get the question "what causes stuttering?" The current thinking is that stuttering is a multi-factorial disorder in which a number of different factors all contribute. My favorite way to describe this concept is use the bucket analogy developed by the Stuttering Center of Western Pennsylvania.

There are a number of risk factors which all contribute to the development of stuttering. No one factor causes stuttering. They do all, however, put water in the bucket. Risk factors that put water in the bucket include:

• genetics (approximately 60% of those who stutter have a family member who stutters)  
• gender (persistent stuttering affects four times as many males as females) 
• time post onset (how long has the child been stuttering)
• personality characteristics, such as perfectionism or a high degree of sensitivity
• the state of a child's language system; for example, a child with a fragile speech and language system, or a child with a highly developed speech and language system combined with less developed motor system
• family dynamics, including high expectations, competition for talk time, and fast-paced, unpredictable lifestyles
• communication style, for example, rapid rate of speech and interruptions
• situational stressors, such as a birth or a death in the family, a change of residence, or a job loss 

When you have enough water in the bucket, the bucket overflows.  Stuttering occurs.

Over to You  

If you have a child who stutters, can you identify the risk factors that put water in your child's bucket?