Stuttering is a common disorder among children. In some cases, it might go away on its own; in some cases, it might require medical intervention. However, there is no guarantee that speech therapy can help in curing stuttering. This might raise your eyebrows. You might think if stuttering cannot be cured then why consult a speech therapist? Is it worth spending your hard-earned money and time to attend a speech therapy session? Hopefully, this article will clear most of your doubts and will encourage you to search for a stuttering therapy near me.
Following are some of the common frequently asked questions:
- Why visit a speech therapy specialist?
Speech therapy specialists, more commonly known as speech therapists are professionals who are trained to diagnose the early onset of speech and communication disorders. The speech-language pathologists help in assessing your child to figure out if there are any disfluency disorders or not.
There are several parameters to diagnose stuttering. Besides, evaluating a secondary behavior, they will assess how severe is the disfluency and then finally recommend a personalized treatment plan to follow. At times, the need for cognitive behavioral therapy and psychological therapy may also arise. In such cases, both therapies work collectively to help the person get rid of the embarrassment, fear, and shame of stuttering.
- Is stuttering treatment required?
Irrespective of whether you have been stuttering since childhood or started stuttering out of the blue, you need to seek the guidance of speech pathologists. There are various factors responsible for it. And only a speech expert will be able to identify it. Also, before you start with the treatment plan, it is important to diagnose if there are any health issues.
- Will stuttering treatment help me with 100% fluency?
You might have seen various advertisements promising 100% guaranteed fluency treatments and therapies. But the harsh reality is you will find no speech therapist telling you that they can cure your stuttering. The main aim of the therapist is to help you speak with ease. After the therapy sessions, you will be able to overcome the blocks that you have experienced while speaking. In the case of children, there is a possibility of reversing stuttering and restoring speech.
- When should you take your child for therapy?
Although most children start showing stuttering signs by the time they are 18 months old. However, one cannot fully ascertain that the child has disfluency or stutters as they tend to show disfluency when learning to speak big words or form complex sentences. You can still consult a speech pathologist to ascertain if the child is at risk or not.
Factors of Childhood Onset Disfluency
Following are some of the factors that may increase the development of childhood-onset disfluency in children:
- A child stuttering for 6 months or more
- A male child
- Someone in the family suffers from stuttering
- The child has other disorders such as ADHD, Down’s syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, or Tourette’s syndrome.
A child may develop stuttering between 18 months of age and 5 years. However, the good news is that almost 75% of toddlers who stutters tends to recover without any medical intervention. Nevertheless, if the child stutters for more than 6 months then consult a speech therapist. Almost 25% of children stuttering from childhood and might tend to stutter throughout their lifetime. Experts refer to such a condition as developmental stuttering or childhood-onset Disfluency disorder. It is not easy to identify developmental stuttering from occasional childhood fluency disorder. Hence, it is best to speak to a professional therapist if you start noticing the signs of stuttering.
