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Stuttering is a common occurrence in many toddlers during their speech development phase. Generally, stuttering tends to improve over time, but in some cases, children may continue to stutter as they grow older. Approximately 99.9% of children experience stuttering between the ages of 1 and 3. From 2-3 years old, children may not speak clearly because they are in the process of developing their speech. With proper intervention, children can adjust and improve their speech. By the age of 4-5, children start shaping their pronunciation skills. Moving into the age of 6, just before starting school, is considered a benchmark to determine if a child stutters or not.
That's why parents need to be equipped with knowledge to instill proper speaking habits in their children. If a child is identified as stuttering, parents can take immediate steps to help them overcome this issue and prevent it from persisting. Let's explore the causes and guidance on how to address stuttering in children with Mytour!
Stuttering as a Language Disorder
A child's language is formed based on conditioned reflexes, relying on stimuli from the external environment impacting the auditory center.
If there is any disruption in the language formation process, language disorders may occur in children, with stuttering being a prominent example.
Research indicates two forms of stuttering in children:
- Physiological Stuttering (organic): Caused by physiological changes in articulatory organs such as short tongue, tongue tie, cleft palate, paralyzed tongue or lips, paralyzed soft palate, etc. or alterations in the central nervous system or disorders in the child's hearing ability.
- Socially-conditioned Stuttering: Pronunciation deviates from the norm.
Stuttering affects individual sounds (sound stuttering) or sound groups (syllabic sound stuttering) or the entire vocabulary is pronounced incorrectly.
Causes of Stuttering in Children
- Children manipulate sound to convey their own thoughts to others
- Parents do not correct immediately when the child speaks incorrectly but instead follow the child's understanding.
- Parents and those around them use incorrect language, causing children to imitate.
- Children experience difficulty breathing or nasal congestion, causing them to stick out their tongue to pronounce words, which is also a factor leading to stuttering in children.
Methods to Treat Stuttering in Children
1. Develop Chewing Skills
According to this approach, the cause of a child's stuttering is weak jaw muscles, slowing the development of the child's speech mechanism.
To strengthen the jaw muscles from an early age, mothers should provide children with foods beneficial for jaw muscles such as crispy biscuits, fruits, vegetables, and various meats.
Additionally, mothers can encourage mouth sucking, biting, and rolling candy from one side of the mouth to the other to enhance the development of facial and tongue muscles. Remember, avoid letting the child suck their thumb.
2. Accurate Pronunciation
In reality, in many regions, people may stutter with certain phonemes like “l” vs “n”, “n” vs “ng”, causing confusion in tone. To prevent children from stuttering, parents and those around them should pay attention to accurate pronunciation while conversing to serve as an example for their children.
When conversing with a child, parents should speak more slowly to ensure the child hears and captures the tones accurately.
3. Train the Child to Breathe Well
When a child is sick, such as with the flu, cold, or sinusitis, they often breathe noisily or through the mouth. In such cases, mothers should promptly seek treatment so that the child can breathe naturally through both the nose and mouth, preventing the child from adopting mouth breathing, which can lead to mispronunciation of many words.
Mothers can refer to the method of treating noisy breathing in children here: http://www.Mytour.vn/blog/tho-kho-khe-o-tre-nguyen-nhan-va-cach-xu-li.html
4. Be Patient and Listen
When talking to a child, adults should patiently listen to the child's expressions. Avoid interrupting if the child makes mistakes or hasn't finished speaking, as this may make the child nervous and worsen their stutter. After the child finishes speaking, gently correct their points using the correct language. If possible, record the child's voice and let them hear the incorrect and correct tones to distinguish between them.
5. Gradually Increase Language Complexity
Once stuttering has improved or as the child grows, parents should enrich their vocabulary and sentence length when conversing with the child to enhance the child's language system.
Parents can also diversify synonyms, antonyms, suggestive words, etc., in their conversations with the child, such as 'Delicious rice. Incredibly tasty rice. Exceptionally delicious rice. Extremely tasty rice...'
6. Train Children in Poetry, Verses, and Folk Songs
One familiar yet highly effective method of teaching language to children is through teaching them to read poetry, verses, folk songs, and proverbs. When the child is 1-2 years old, parents can collect numerous short poems or rhymes to teach them. This is particularly beneficial for a child's correct pronunciation, especially regarding Vietnamese tones.
Through the stories that mothers tell their children, the child can learn a substantial amount of vocabulary for communication, promoting more coherent thinking.
7. Pay Attention to Logic in Language
Parents should practice explaining things to their child logically, like explaining why it's necessary to turn on the light. Instead of simply saying, 'Turn on the light, dear,' say, 'When we turn on the light, it becomes bright, and we can see clearly. If we don't turn on the light, it will be dark, and we won't see things clearly.'
8. And the most crucial thing is the genuine closeness of parents to the child.
If parents completely delegate caregiving and conversation responsibilities to grandparents or caregivers, understanding what the child is saying becomes challenging. Parents should always be the ones who understand the child the best, knowing what the child needs from the very first words. Children often get frustrated and upset when their parents don't understand them, which can have a negative impact on their psyche.
When addressing a child's stutter, parents need patience as this is a task that cannot be successfully accomplished overnight. If there are suspicions that the child's stutter is due to physiological factors like a short tongue, long tongue, tongue issues, or throat issues, it's essential to take the child for timely examination and correction.
Stuttering is a condition that most children experience. Although hearing a child stutter can be endearing, amusing, and incredibly cute on a daily basis, parents should not be complacent. It is crucial to help the child quickly overcome this condition to prevent any disadvantages when they reach school age.
