How do I help my child who stutters?
This is another great question we got in our Facebook Group recently.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer to this one…
Not because you can’t help (you can!), but because there are so many different things that might be helpful.
What are the best strategies for stuttering?
Similar to a lot of speech therapy for articulation, finding the best strategies to work on stuttering can involve a lot of trial and error.
The strategies that will be most helpful can be totally different from one child to the next.
They’ll also change depending on how old your child is.
Stuttering Strategies For Young Children:
When your child is younger, you might not address the stuttering directly at all…
Instead, you might focus on modeling-based strategies where you’re using the technique and allowing your child to learn from listening to how you speak.
Or you might play games that involve “silly speech” stuttering strategies that you can practice without ever needing to tell your child why you’re doing it.
Stuttering Strategies for Older Children:
For older kids (or even adults), you’ll likely want to address the stuttering more directly.
Younger children might not even be aware of their stutter, which would mean they couldn’t provide much feedback on the strategies you’re trying.
In that case, drawing too much attention to it also has the potential to make the stutter worse.
But that’s unlikely to be the case with older kids.
At the point that they’re aware of their stuttering, it’s easy for them to become more involved.
You can explain what the techniques are and how they might help.
And your child can give you feedback on which strategies are easiest to use and seem to be most helpful for them.
If you’re looking for strategies to try, check out one of my favorite resources, “The Looooong List of 27 Incredible Stuttering Treatment Techniques” by SLP Stephen.
