Two Year Old Stammering

Recently, my prodigious little 2.33 year old has taken to stammering his way through sentences. First it was “I’m gonna gonna. . .” and then he added a few more “gonnas”. Then, it was just “I, I, I, I. . . .”

While I suspect that it’s akin to that point in learning a foreign language when your brain goes faster than your limited vocabulary allows, it’s still kind of worrisome.

He talks A LOT! Last Sunday in church, he sat on the floor with a little 5 year old girl and talked her ear off about “saying a prayer” and about “going pee” and all sorts of hilarious things. Every day, usually while he’s in the bathtub, we review his day and he tells me what he’s done. Sometimes, if he doesn’t have the words to say what he wants, he’ll quote from one of the books we read often.

If and when he stammers, I don’t interrupt him or try to finish his sentences for him. I do, however, sometimes gently prod him with “think about what you’re trying to say”, which seems to help because he can usually complete his sentence after that. It’s like he has SO much he wants to say, but is trying to find the words to say it.

I googled “two year old stuttering” and found a couple of things that put my mind at ease.

Here’s what BabyCenter has to say:

"It's normal for your 2-year-old to go through a phase of stuttering, especially when you consider the fact that between the ages of 30 months and 5 years, kids are undergoing extremely rapid growth in their verbal abilities.

Technically, most kids this age don't have a true stutter — instead, they either hesitate when talking or repeat whole words or the first syllable of a word. Your child has these lapses when his brainpower outstrips his verbal dexterity. He may be extremely excited to tell you what's on his mind, or he may be tired, angry, or upset, so he can't get his words out easily. His rapidly developing brain is trying to pull up the right words in the right order. The result may come out something like this: "Mommy, Mommy, look at — look at that." If your child's stuttering continues to get worse, to the point where he's tensing his jaw or grimacing in an effort to get the words out, talk with his pediatrician."

And a pediatric expert from WebMD:

"Transient dysfluency (temporary stuttering) is typically seen in 2- to 4-year-olds. They usually are very verbal and often advanced for their years. The dysfluency results from their talking abilities going faster than the language centers of their brain. It’s as if their brain can’t catch up to their motor mouth, so it slows things down by repeating sounds over and over (i.e. by stuttering).

Stuttering is probably, at least in part, an inborn, genetic problem. There are lots of theories, but nobody really knows what causes it. Boys are about three times more likely to stutter than girls. When it comes to developmental issues, boys always get the short end of the stick!

Once your little guy’s brain catches up to his mouth, the stuttering will disappear. In the meantime, I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. He’s too young to be very bothered by the stuttering, and if you get anxious about it, so will he, which may just make it worse. Continue to talk to him in a nice, slow, relaxed way and patiently wait for him to make his points. The odds are very good he’ll outgrow it in less than a year.

So I wouldn’t worry if I were you, but while I’m on the subject, let’s discuss when a parent should begin to worry about a child’s stuttering, which is seen in 1% of school-aged children.

Personally, I usually don’t worry about stuttering unless it’s still happening after the age of 4 years. Here are some things that would lead me to bring a child to a speech-language therapist’s attention:

• The child is very bothered and upset by the stuttering.
• The stuttering occurs in all situations, not just when the child is excited or nervous.
• The child seems to be struggling to get the words out, with an increase in the pitch of his/her voice.
• The repetitions are very frequent and very long.
• There are frequent prolongations or blockages of words and sounds.
• The child avoids saying certain difficult words.

We’ve all known people who stutter and we all know how hard it can be for the stutterer. The good news is:

1. Most kids get better.

2. Speech therapy helps. If you have any concerns about your child’s dysfluency, talk to your pediatric provider or find a good speech-language pathologist (the Stuttering Foundation of America can recommend one)."

It seems to be a passing phase, since he's already getting a little better, but these things are still good to know.

~Nichole