By Mary Ann Lopez
CU-Boulder News Services Writer
Parents eagerly anticipate the moment when their children start to talk. It is exciting when a child begins saying their first words and making sentences. But for some parents it is a time of anxiety, because their child struggles to get the words out.
When children are learning to string words together stuttering usually becomes noticeable, said Peter Ramig, a professor of speech and language pathology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Approximately 2 percent of children experience a real stuttering problem and 90 percent of these children will begin stuttering between the ages of 2 and 5.
A new videotape titled "Stuttering and the Preschool Child: Help for Families" is intended to help parents detect stuttering and to take positive action toward helping their children.
"Treatment can eradicate stuttering in some children if it is caught early enough," Ramig said. "If it continues children often have problems with school, experience issues related to self-esteem, begin to act out and avoid speaking situations. Many stutterers hold themselves back from fulfilling their life goals as a result of the embarrassment, frustration and shame they feel around their stuttering."
Ramig stuttered himself until he sought help during college. "My stuttering was disabling until I was 24 years old," he said. "It was very difficult. Although I still stutter, and always will, it is no longer a problem for me. With the great speech therapy I received in college, I can now speak with minor and effortless stuttering."
When a child feels different from their peers or even when an adult feels different it has an impact on self-esteem, he said. "There is no doubt stuttering can become a very disabling force in the life of the child or adult who stutters."
Ramig is one of four nationally recognized experts featured in the video. It is designed to educate parents, family, speech pathologists, teachers or anyone who might deal with someone who stutters.
The video was produced by the Stuttering Foundation of America, a nonprofit organization established in 1947. The foundation has produced many other videos to help both those who stutter and their families and distributes them free to public libraries around the nation. The videos also may be purchased for only $5.
The new video is easy to understand and uses children who stutter and their parents as examples. It demonstrates the different types of stuttering, such as stretching a sound, saying part of a word repeatedly or straining to get words out. Then it explains how parents can help their child聮s stuttering and the types of therapy available.
"Treatment should be very positive for preschool-aged children, something they enjoy and that shows them they can be more fluent," Ramig said.
A significant number of children who stutter will outgrow it by age four-and-a-half but speech pathologists cannot know which children will automatically stop stuttering, Ramig explained. Waiting too long can make it more difficult to reverse the problem.
If parents are concerned they should have their child evaluated by a speech and language pathologist, Ramig said. Parents should make sure the speech pathologist is certified and feels comfortable in treating stuttering in young children.
The CU-Boulder Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences Clinic does evaluation and treatment of stuttering as well as many other speech and hearing disorders. For more information on the clinic contact Ramig at (303) 492-3049 or write the University of Colorado at Boulder, Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Box 409, Boulder, CO 80309.
For more information about the video or the Stuttering Foundation of America call (800) 992-9392, write the foundation at P.O. Box 11749, Memphis, TN 38111-0749, or visit the Web site at .