For parents of toddlers learning to speak, it can be difficult to tell the difference between normal difficulties with speech and stuttering. If your child has trouble talking and hesitates on or repeats certain syllables, words or phrases, he may have a stuttering problem.
However, he may simply be going through periods of normal "disfluency" that most children experience as they learn to speak, according to Dr. Barry Guitar from the University of Vermont and Dr. Edward Conture from Vanderbilt University.
Stuttering is a complex disorder that affects three million Americans, and according to The Stuttering Foundation, a non-profit organization working toward the prevention and improved treatment of stuttering, there is a general lack of knowledge when it comes to stuttering.
Your role
As with any of your child's new skills, your job is to provide encouragement and support -- and, in this case, supplies. Starting as early as your baby's first birthday, be sure to have crayons and paper or coloring books on hand for when he starts showing an interest in scribbling. (Skip pens and pencils until he's older -- they're much sharper than crayons and could hurt your toddler if he fell on them or accidentally poked himself in the face.) Let him practice scribbling as often as he likes, but take breaks if he gets frustrated.
Teach your child to limit his artistic endeavors to the piece of paper in front of him, although no matter how many times you tell him not to, he's bound to find the wallpaper (or the floor, or your brand-new paperback) irresistible. So be prepared to clean up after him a few times; to that end, invest in washable crayons. Try not to let him eat his supplies, although getting a little burnt sienna in his system at some point is practically inevitable -- and won't do any lasting harm.
When it comes to writing actual letters, the most important thing you can do is let your child learn at his own pace. "It's all too easy to overdo teaching letters and numbers," says T. Berry Brazelton in his book Touchpoints. "To me, the timing is not as important as the child's own desire to learn. Be sure the idea of learning these things is coming from him. It's so easy to push early learning on a child who is compliant at this age. But it does more harm than good." Preschoolers who are forced to read and write before they're ready can do it and will often seem to have an edge over their kindergarten classmates. But studies have found that they lose that advantage as they get older and realize they can't apply the same memorizing techniques they used for reading and writing to more complex learning.
Finally, be sure to talk to and read to your child as much as possible. The more language he hears, the more his brain will grow and develop, which will benefit all of his communication skills -- including writing -- in the long run.
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