Information and FAQs about Stuttering for Kids
(also available in Estonian Translation by Johanne Teerink
Information about Stuttering
Some Information about Stuttering For Kids from Kidsource.Tammy Bryant-McMillin is a speech therapist. She has put online a fun activity: Stuttering Awareness Game that you can use to learn a lot of interesting information about stuttering.Information for Kids from The Stuttering Foundation
Frequently Asked Questions - From and By Kids
These are some questions kids who stutter ask a lot - or get asked a lot. Maybe you would like to send in some other questions that we can use to make a FAQ - that is a place where questions that get asked a lot, get answered. It stands for Frequently Asked Questions. Below are some questions kids who stutter ask a lot - or get asked a lot.
What is stuttering?How do people talk?How many people stutter?What causes stuttering?When was the first incidence of stuttering reported?What makes you stutter?When do people start to stutter?Is it true that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me?"Why do some people tease all the time?What should I do when people tease me?What are some other things I can do that might help stop people from teasing?Who are some famous people who stutter?What are some ways I can help others people learn more about stuttering?Why do I stutter sometimes and not at other times?Why do some people make me stutter?How do you remember to use good speech in school, do you have any tips?Do you stutter in space if your muscles are shifting around?My question is can you ever stop stuttering?I am14 going to be 15. Here is my question: How do I get kids to stop teasing me about my stuttering and make them realize that it is ok to stutter.Hi, I am in 5th grade and stutter. My godmother told my mom about a cure. It is said to work for 80-90% of the people who try it. You have to read with your teeth clenched (together) for a certain amount of time each day. Can this cure my stuttering?What is the origin of the actual word "stuttering"?Where can I learn some more about stuttering?When I start to stutter I use a short word like "um or somdthing then I say the word that I stuttered on again so it sounds normal. Is this a good idea?Why are there more boys that stutter than girls that stutter?I take 7th grade choir and I am just curious to know why I don't stutter when I sing?
How many people stutter?
There are about three million people in our world who stutter, and they are both children and adults. Three million people is a lot of people! If that many people stood in a long line and held hands, they would stretch all the way across the United States. The first person in the line could have a foot in the Atlantic Ocean, and the last person in the line could have a foot in the Pacific Ocean. People who stutter are not alone!
What is stuttering?
Stuttering is when your words don't come out smoothly. Some kids say they get "stuck" and even call it "bumpy speech" because sometimes it sounds that way.
What causes stuttering?
Nobody really knows the cause of stuttering. Sometimes our speech machines (the parts of our bodies that make speech) don't work the way we want them to. There are many different ideas about why that happens. In fact, there may be different causes for different people. Scientists are working hard to try to figure out why people stutter. What is most important is that stuttering is nobody's fault. It's not your fault or your parents' fault.
What makes you stutter?
We don't know the cause of stuttering but we do know that all people who stutter stutter more at certain times. Some people may stutter more if they are excited, tired, nervous, or upset. Some people stutter more when they first wake up in the morning. Some people stutter more when they try and talk really fast, when they're thinking of a word they want to say, or when they are feeling afraid about talking to a certain person. Even if you stutter, it probably doesn't happen all of the time. Most people don't stutter when they read in unison, sing, or talk to animals. Listen carefully to others around you. What you will notice is that everyone stutters sometimes.
When do people start to stutter?
Most people start to stutter between the ages of two and about six or seven, during the time that they are learning how to make speech sounds and new words. Some people may start later than that.
Is it true that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me?"
No, that's not so. Teasing can make you feel really bad inside where it counts. You have to work hard to remember that you are a good person even when somebody says bad things to you. They just don't know what they are talking about.
Why do some people tease all the time?
Sometimes people tease because they are scared or puzzled by something. Most of the time people tease in a mean way because they're envious or they feel really rotten about themselves. They think they can feel better if they make someone else feel bad. Often the meanest teasers are people who aren't good in school, or who have bad problems at home.
What should I do when people tease me?
The people who tease you are probably not your friends anyway, so the best thing to do is just walk away from them. If you want, you could also practice one or two things to say if someone teases you. For instance, you might look them in the eye and say, "So what?", or you might say, "Kids who stutter are just as smart as other kids" . It might help to think of lots of different things to do or say, practice them and choose the ones you like the best. Remember that stuttering is something you do with your mouth sometimes and does not make you any less smart, good looking, or friendly than anyone else. Sooner or later people who tease will probably get bored with teasing and leave you alone if you don't get all upset. If they won't leave you alone, you have a right to ask a grownup to help. That is not tattling. Nobody has to put up with being teased unless they want to be. The Stuttering Foundation has more information and a free brochure that lets people know that you are not the only one who stutters and that it might be a sign you will be famous one day! You can also read a free book about teasing written by a girl who stutters Trouble at Recess
What are some other things I can do that might help stop people from teasing?
- The next time you have to give a report in health or social studies, ask if you may do it about stuttering. Most kids don't know anything about it, and believe it or not, some are kind of scared of it!
- Make a poster, bulletin board, or showcase about stuttering for Stuttering Awareness Week, or for a science project.
- Ask your teacher, or get a parent or your speech therapist to ask, if he or she can try a class experiment for twenty minutes or so and have everyone in the class "block." A good way to do that is to have everyone count silently and slowly to ten before they can say anything. That really gives kids an idea about what it is like to have a stuttering block!
- Learn about famous people who stutter, or stuttered. Nobody makes fun of Bob Love! James Earl Jones, the person who is the voice for Darth Vader in Star Wars, stuttered a lot when he was young. He still calls himself a stutterer. Tell your friends about them. Word will get back to the teasers, too. They will be surprised.
- Try not to act shy when you are called on in class, even if someone laughs at you. It's hard, but try to pretend they aren't there. Your real friends won't laugh and you can act like you don't care about the others.
- When you meet new people, tell them right away that you stutter. Smile when you do it. Then they won't be surprised when you do, and they probably won't care, either.
- Here are some other good ideas that kids suggested -- What I Say Or Do When I Am Teased About Stuttering
What are some ways I can help other people learn more about stuttering?
Ask your speech teacher if it is a good idea for you to use Michelle and Judy's Therapy Picture Project - Helping Children Who Stutter Become Their Own Advocates. You can also use some ideas from John Ahlbach's Stuttering Presentation Guide. Check Teaching Others from the Stuttering Foundation.
Why do I stutter sometimes and not at other times?
We really don't know why that happens, but it seems that everyone who stutters does this. There are some theories that make sense. One is that people get the idea very, very quickly that they will stutter in some situations. For instance, if you have a really bad stuttering block while you are in the lunch line, that might plant the idea deep down in your mind that you will stutter when you have to stand in line. So a couple days later you are standing in line to buy a movie ticket and --wham! -- you start stuttering!
Another theory is that being "excited" can make you stutter because extra energy from other parts of your brain spills over into the part that controls speech. The excitement can be either good excitement such as going to a party or bad excitement such as being teased or scolded, but the effect is pretty much the same.
You might talk to your speech teacher about doing a real scientific experiment. Keep a stuttering diary for a few weeks and see if you can figure out what kinds of things seem to make you stutter more and what kinds make you stutter less. Don't just look at the big, obvious things such as "being in school" or "going to the beach." Try to be very specific. Do you stutter more when you ask questions or when you answer them? Do you stutter more in math or in English class? In the post office or in the drug store? With men teachers or with women teachers? Figure out your own places and situations to compare. This kind of project can tell you a lot about your own stuttering. If you can figure out just what kinds of things tend to make you feel stuttery, you will have a useful tool for managing your speech.
Why do some people make me stutter?
First of all, get rid of the idea that "some people make you stutter." You might stutter more around some people than you do around other people, but usually they don't "make" you do anything. Your reactions are your own, and you can learn about them and eventually learn to manage them.
The chances are that you stutter more around some people than you do around other people because they remind you of a time when you really stuttered badly. This reminder can be way deep down where you don't really even think about it. Of course, the more you stutter around those people, the more they make you think about stuttering. It is a vicious circle which is very difficult to break.
Sometimes it makes sense that you might stutter more around particular people, for instance people who tease you and put you down, or people who are very bossy and impatient, or people who are always grouchy and who fuss at you a lot. If that happens, it would be a good idea to talk about it with your parents, your speech teacher, or a favorite teacher. People who are demanding, rude, or impatient often don't even know that they are that way, and you might need backup help from a grownup to get them to let up.
How do you remember to use good speech in school, do you have any tips?
That's a hard one! If you haven't used good speech for very long, it will be really difficult to remember to do it when you have to ask or answer a question, read, or give a presentation. Instead of concentrating on the times you forget to use good speech, set yourself a goal of using good speech once a day for a week, then twice a day for a week, then three times, and so forth. Congratulate yourself for meeting your goal, don't be hard on yourself for not using good speech at the other times. By the end of the school year, you will be using good speech all day!
Think about how you feel when you have to speak in class. Do you feel rushed? Do you feel like people are staring at you, or that the teacher wants you to hurry up and get on with it? If you do feel like this, you should talk to your parents, teacher or speech teacher, and together you can figure out ways to lighten up the pressure a little. Otherwise, just expect that sometimes you will forget to use good speech. That's really OK. As long as you don't get discouraged, you will eventually learn to use good speech without really thinking about it too much. But it can take a long time to learn to do that.
Here's something else that you can do secretly for yourself. Next time you have question-and-answer time or oral reports in class, mark down on a piece of paper the number of times the other kids have to stop and start again, make a speech mistake, repeat a word or a syllable, or goof up some other way. I bet you'll be surprised! You might want to talk about that tally with your speech teacher. You see, everyone screws up speaking sometimes, so stuttering now and then really should not be that much of a problem.
When was the first incidence of stuttering reported?
Nobody knows that for sure. Stuttering is found in every language and every country in the world, and evidence of stuttering is found in several very old documents. There is even an example of a speech problem in Egyptian symbols called hieroglyphics. As you can see, the picture shows a person trying to speak but the speaking gets blocked by what looks like walls. Maybe this symbol was showing stuttering.
(From Faulkner (1991) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian)
One of the first stutterers we know about may have been Moses, who told God that he couldn't lead the Israelites because he was "slow of speech." He got permission from God to let his brother Aaron do the talking for him at first! Another early example was the Greek orator Demosthenes (pronounced "de-MOS-the-neez"). He made himself into a strong speaker by running with stones tied to his chest (a kind of early weight training) and by practicing speaking with a mouth full of pebbles. You can read about both of these early stutterers on the Stuttering Homepage, in the "Famous People who Stutter" section.
Do you stutter in space if your muscles are shifting around?
Wow, Ben and Walter. That question is out of this world, for sure!
If a person stutters on the ground, he or she probably would stutter in space, too. . The reason is that the muscles that "shift around" in space are mostly the larger, slower muscles that hold a person upright - like the muscles in your legs, sides, and back. In space, without gravity, they don't have much to do so they get weak.
But, hands and faces have small, fast-moving muscles that work all the time, even in space. And the face muscles don't really work against gravity the way the leg and body muscles do.. They work mostly against each other, so I don't think that the lack of gravity would affect stuttering much, if at all.
On the other hand, you probably know that any big change can affect how much a person stutters. An astronaut might be so excited at being in space that he or she might become pretty dysfluent for a while. It is more likely, though, that any astronauts who stutter would be so busy with experiments and work on the space craft that they would not have time to worry about whether they stuttered or not -- and that could even make them stutter less.
Either way, since stuttering has just about nothing to do with the things that astronauts do, it would be no reason at all to keep someone from becoming an astronaut. Why don't you two design an experiment and propose it to NASA? I think it would be very interesting as well as good science to analyze the cockpit and cabin tapes from the shuttle for evidence of stuttering or other speech problems that might be affected by the lack of gravity in space.
My question is can you ever stop stuttering?
Hi James. I'm glad you wrote. The answer is, it really depends. Some people apparently do stop stuttering, usually after a whole lot of speech therapy. Some stutter a lot all their lives, though. Most fall somewhere in between. That is, their stuttering diminishes, but it's still there. It just isn't very important any more. Most of the time people don't pay any attention to it.
The best way to make stuttering diminish is to be open and honest about it, and eventually to learn not to care whether you stutter or not. That can be very difficult to do but it's worth making the effort to learn how. The people whose stuttering stops (or gets so mild that nobody notices) are often the people who can grin and say, "Sure I stutter, but it doesn't matter!" Instead of worrying about stuttering and trying to hide it, they learn to communicate very well. They say what they want to say, when they want to say it, and they don't let anyone stop them.
If you learn to accept and be proud of yourself whether you stutter or not, the chances are that stuttering will not matter once you are grown up. But if you always worry about trying not to stutter, then stuttering will probably be a problem all your life.
I am 14 going to be 15. Here is my question: How do I get kids to stop teasing me about my stuttering and make them realize that it is ok to stutter.
First, I suppose that you have already talked to your teachers, parents, speech pathologist, counselor, and all those people who are supposed to be able to help you deal with things like teasing. I also suppose that you are not satisfied with their answers, or you wouldn't have written to the Homepage!
I hate to tell you, but unless you are six feet eight inches tall and built like a tank, and have a temper to match, there isn't much you can do right now to stop the teasing. You can try a few things like telling the teasers outright that it's OK to stutter, but if I know anything at all about 14-year-olds, they won't listen unless they want to. What you can control, at least some, is the way you react to it.
That is much easier to do if you can hook up with people who know what you are going through. If you are in speech therapy now, perhaps your therapist can put you in touch with a group such as a National Stuttering Association chapter or a Friends (an association of young people who stutter) chapter. Although NSA chapters are usually mostly adults, they welcome teens and young adults as well. You would be surprised at how much strength and support you can get from groups like those.
Some day you might want to go to the National Stuttering Association's Convention, usually near the end of June. There are always a lot of activities for kids and teens, and plenty of chances to share both troubles and triumphs. Friends also has conventions.
You might also want to join the stuttering interest list "stutt-l" and ask your question there. Almost everyone on that list has been through the agony of being teased, and some of them have really good strategies for dealing with it. At the very least, write to the Stuttering Foundation and order their book "Do you stutter? Advice for teens."
What are you doing this summer? New job, old job, hanging out, summer school? During the school year, I would suggest that you try to find an opportunity to do an oral report on stuttering, either in science, in communication arts, or in social studies. That is usually a very powerful way to get your classmates to understand where you are coming from. That doesn't work in the summer, of course, but it is something you can maybe plan for next Fall.
However, summer can be a chance to make yourself over in a new environment where stuttering won't matter. For instance, if you are working, the chances are that your boss won't care a fig about your stuttering if you do a really good job at your work. If you are too young to work (in some parts of the country, you have to be 16 to get a job) then volunteer. For instance, you can volunteer to help the groundskeeper or sexton at your church, or help out in an old folks' home, or your community library, or homeless shelter, or some other public facility. As a matter of fact, you can benefit from volunteering even if you are working. There is nothing quite like doing something to help others to give you the kind of grownup self-confidence that will let you view teasing as the kind of childish, stupid behavior that it is.
Hi, I am in 5th grade and stutter. My godmother told my mom about a cure. It is said to work for 80-90% of the people who try it. You have to read with your teeth clenched (together) for a certain amount of time each day. Can this cure my stuttering?
Your godmother probably saw this "cure" for stuttering in an Ann Landers or Dear Abby column not too long ago. Although I know that your godmother was trying to be helpful, it is not a cure for stuttering. It is something like what is called "an old wive's tale." Have you ever heard that expression? There are old wive's tales about lots of things. I remember my grandmother told me I could get rid of the warts on my hands by burying a dishrag under the back porch when the moon was full - or something like that. The best advice I have for you and your mom is to talk to a speech therapist (you are perhaps already working with one - I hope so).
What is the origin of the word stuttering?
What an interesting question. And it led to some detective work for several of us. The easy answer to your question is nobody knows for sure. But there is some interesting information we found.
Words describing stuttering have been around for a long time. It is unclear when the very first reference to the act of stuttering occurred. There is a verb that means "to stutter" that appeared in an Egyptian story "The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor", from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. If you look at the link in the line above you will see an Egyptian symbol called hieroglyphics that may have been referred to stuttering. This is from about 4000 years ago!! The symbols tell the tale of a man having to speak with his king after an unsuccessful expedition.
You might like to look at several of the words for stuttering from around the world. There is something special about many of these words. If you say them out loud you will notice that many actually sound like stuttering -- parts of the words repeat.
But you asked where the actual word stuttering comes from. The answer is really not very clear, but there are many possibilities. There is an old Norse word "stytta" which also means "to stop." There is also an old German word stutten that means to make a series of repeated sounds (like a machine gun) and another German word (stumm), which means to speak with involuntary pauses or blocks. In The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, the word stutter was felt to orginate before the 1100's from another German word meaning to push or shove. Joseph T. Shipley traced the word "stutter" back to "stue" in his book The Origins of English Words. The word "stue" is from a Greek word that means to strike.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, apparently the word "stutter" doesn't appear in English until about the time Shakespeare was born. That was a period of great change in the English language. The word may be related to "totter." However, there is an obsolete word (a word that is no longer used) "stutte" that meant "stop" or "hesitate" so it could have come from that word as well. There is also an old reference from 1529 that says "Her felow did stammer and stut," which may have been an early example of the word "stutte."
Where can I learn some more about stuttering?
A few good places for kids to learn more about stuttering are
- Sometimes I Just Stutter by Eelco de Geus who lives in the Netherlands and translated by Elisabeth Versteegh-Vermeij, is a book written especially for children who stutter.
- Stuttering from KidsHealth.
- Information for Kids from The Stuttering Foundation
When I start to stutter I use a short word like "um or something then I say the word that I stuttered on again so It sounds normal. Is this a good idea?
That trick is one that a lot of other people have tried. The bad part about tricks like that is that it sometimes works for a little while. Then it sometimes stops working. But you have learned to say "um" in front of some words and it becomes a new part of your stuttering. When that happens, some people try another "trick" - maybe blinking their eyes, or bobbing their head, or breathing funny, or something. That will work for a little while, too, although you are still also saying "um" in front of the word you are trying to say. Then the next trick doesn't work either. These tricks can keep adding to the problem. The problem just keeps growing. And then someday, the biggest problem is not the little bobble or repetition you had on a word, it is all the ums, and other things you have added to try to keep from doing the bobble in the first place. Please talk to your speech therapist about this.
Why do more boys who stutter than girls who stutter?
Some people believe that when boys and girls are just starting to "stutter," there are about as many boys as girls who have stuttering in their speech. Then, for some reason, more of the girls seem to stop the stuttering. But many of the boys will also stop the stuttering. We aren't sure why more girls seem to get over stuttering than boys. It may be that there are some differences between boys' and girls' language and speech abilities when they are learning to talk. It may be that people expect different things from boys than they do from girls (like some girls are quieter in school than some boys. Maybe when they are quieter, they don't have as many times to notice and get upset by any stutters and as parts of their brain mature, their speech and language improves to a point where the "stutters" in their speech just disappear). It may be something that researchers haven't even thought of yet! Some day maybe you can research this question! When you do research this question, you will discover the same 4:1 (boys to girls) ratio in some other areas, too! When people do research, the first thing they have to do is come up with a good question like you did!
I take 7th grade choir and I am just curious to know why I don't stutter when I sing?
You raise a very interesting question! Many (but not all) people who stutter when they speak, do not stutter when they sing. It is not just the people you have seen on programs like American Idol. There are other pretty famous speaker that don't stutter when they sing. Check the list of Famous People Who Stutter on the Stuttering Home Page and look for the keyword "singer" and you will find some.
There are many ideas why this is true but nobody really knows for sure. Some of the ideas are:
- when you are singing, you use your voice box in a smoother, easier way (sort of connecting all the words together in a way that doesn't usually happen when you are speaking
- speaking tends to start mostly in the left side of your brain, but singing seems to be more located in the right side of your brain so your brain may work differently between singing and speaking
- when you sing, you know the words that you need to sing. When you are speaking, you brain may have to work a little harder to figure out what your mouth wants to say
- singing has a regular rhythm or tempo that may help a person be more fluent
How do people talk? from E. Charles Healey, Ph.D.
Talking is something we do a lot during any day. Being able to say what we want seems simple and doesn't take a lot of work or thought. But, in order to speak well enough for people to understand us and hear what we have to say takes the control of air from our lungs, voice, tongue and lip movements. So, the three main parts of our body that we use for talking are our lungs (for the air supply), our vocal folds, (to make vocal sounds), and our tongue, lips and jaw, (to shape speech sounds).
Lungs (respiration)
First, the lungs provide the air needed to turn the voice on and to make sounds in the mouth. Air comes out of he lungs wen we talk and is the first thing that needs to happen to talk correctly. Try to turn your voice on while holding your breath. You can't do it because the air is blocked by the voice. Now, let the air come out of your lungs, say, "ah" and feel your voice buzz by placing your fingers on your neck over the voice box. The air coming out of your lungs makes the voice buzz or vibrate. You can also let air come out of your lungs and make sounds like the /s/ or /sh/ with your voice turned off. Sometimes, people don't take enough air into their lungs before they start talking. If this happens, the person will need to push hard to get the air to come out and that causes the voice box to tense up and not buzz easily. So to talk well, we need to get a good full flow of air out of our lungs before and during the time we talk.
Vocal Folds (phonation)
The second system important for speech is the voice. As we have said, air from the lungs helps cause the voice to buzz or vibrate But, for this to happen, we need to keep the muscles of the voice relaxed. If we try to start our voice when our vocal muscles are tight and tense, the voice may not vibrate or it will turn on suddenly, with force. If you have a hard time turning voice on or keeping it on, it probably means that your vocal muscles are too stiff and tense.
Tongue, Lips and Jaw (articulation)
The third part of the speech system is the mouth and is made up of the tongue, lips and jaw. When we make movements and contacts with these parts of our mouth, they form different speech sounds. Make /t/ sound for the word "time" and feel your tongue touch the roof of your mouth behind your front teeth. Note too that your air and voice turn off during the /t/ sound but turn on to finish the rest of the sounds in the word. Other sounds like /s/, /sh/, k/, /p/ and /f/ are made with some stoppage of the air or the air has to go through a tiny opening in the mouth. Feel the air hit your hand when you make a /f/ sound. Now, make a /v/ sound and feel the difference in the amount of air that hits your hand. Less air hits your hand on /v/ because the voice is turned on. Remember the voice needs air to work too.
Making sounds with our lips and tongue can be easy if we make the contacts light and smooth. But, sometimes the tension and tightness in the muscles of our lips, tongue or jaw make it hard to move from one sound to another. When this happens, it could make airflow and voicing hard too. So, keeping the lips, tongue, and jaw relaxed and moving freely will help to talk smoothly without a lot of effort. Talking easily isn't hard if you remember to keep your air and voice going and move the tongue, lips and jaw smoothly for one sound to another.
last updated March 2, 2018
