The age between one and three, which is the toddler stage, is the period of the most active speech development. During this time, a child progresses from their first words to forming sentences. This is often when stuttering begins.

Is it stuttering?

If your child occasionally repeats words like 'the dog - the dog - the dog' or 'she-she-she' and then goes on with the phrase, it is widely regarded as normal at this age. This may happen because toddlers already know what they want to say and rush to say it, but their speaking mechanism is not yet ready to match this pace. There’s usually no problem with this, as the child’s speaking toolkit will develop and catch up a bit later.

But if your child repeats sounds rather than words, especially the first consonants, like 'sh-sh-sh-sh,' and you notice muscle tension while getting it out, these are signs of the development of true stuttering. It's much easier to address stuttering at this stage, when speaking patterns are evolving and are still flexible, than to treat stuttering later, when the patterns become highly automated.

Stuttering is an iceberg with speech impediments on top of it. Then a child becomes more and more conscious about the way he or she speaks and the way other people react to that. People who stutter develop a fear of speech, tension and anxiety thinking about speaking, and this emotional state backs and supports stuttering, makes it automated and brings negative emotions to a person who stutters.

So at this point, we don't have this pyramid, this iceberg. The impediments represent just a new experience for a kid. The child is not so concerned about it at this stage. It can still go either way. It’s not yet an automated speaking pattern; it’s just something a child is going through.

You can help

Now, what can be done? Teaching or explaining directly to a child about speaking might not be very effective. What we can do instead is create a certain environment for the child.

Some argue that stuttering is hereditary, and nothing can help. I agree that most people who stutter have predispositions to stuttering on different levels.

However, I strongly believe that stuttering at this stage resembles a weed seed. We can plant it in fertile soil and help it grow, or leave it in the sand to vanish. Our task is to create conditions and an environment where stuttering is less likely to develop.

Let's explore what parents can do specifically.

Tip #1. Speaking environment

There’s no point in trying to instruct a child, a toddler how to speak. No way, it doesn’t work. A child at this age is like a sponge. The way to learn for a child is to emulate, repeat what others do. First of all, what parents do. But our adult speaking pace is usually way too fast for a toddler. And our speaking is pretty choppy as well.

A toddler wants to imitate that speed and that style. But a kid’s speaking mechanism is not yet as developed as ours. So the child runs into a problem trying to process a too large number of sounds in a short period of time.

What we can do to help our child is to speak in a smooth way. And make the first vowel sound in a word or sentence, whatever you want to say, longer, stronger, and deeper than usual. It's like singing on the first vowel sound. And we also want to split our speech into short phrases.

So, first, it's about the overall pattern of smooth speaking, and second, it’s about the smooth and relaxing inflow into the phrase.

Tip #2. Emotional confidence

Here are several aspects:

• Don't expose your child to emotional roller coasters.
• Build up confidence first.
• Connect with your child.

Tip #3. Developing your kid’s speaking skills

There are a lot of different activities and games that can help a kid really like and enjoy speaking. They also facilitate the development of speaking skills and make it fun and stress-free.

First of all, it's developing fine motor skills.

If you Google you’ll find many videos and articles on this subject. There are tons and tons of games and activities out there. From dough and beads to hanging socks.

Here's a link to the blog post from the website called "Mess For Less" so that you can go deeper into that.

Another thing is gross motor skills and physical activities

Again, just Google and you’ll find myriads of games and activities to develop gross motor skills of your kid for your inspiration.

I noticed that kids love the most the games that you invent on the fly. Hiding an object in the room so that you still can see it and then looking for it, throwing a toy into a bin or basket, creating random sequences. Like I say, throw a ball and catch it, that’s 1, jump one step ahead, that’s 2 and then crawl between the chairs, that’s 3. Now you repeat it. My kids just loved creating crazy sequences for me. "You dad, go 3 steps ahead, then jump over a line here, then close your eyes and touch your nose with your finger, then throw this rabbit onto the chair, and then ten other things to do." And I’m asking my daughter, "Can you repeat anything of that yourself?"

The next thing is combining games and activities with speaking

Playing these games and doing these activities try to combine speaking with the motor activities.

For example, you're playing toy cubes with your toddler putting them one on the other. So you say, let's play food. I say pizza and put a cube. Now it's your turn, name your food and put your cube.

It can be jumping, clapping, throwing, catching, and saying a word or phrase at the same time. There are so many ways how we can link them together.

Key takeaways

To sum up all three tips together:
1. You create the speaking environment
2. Emotional confidence
3. Developing your kid’s speaking skills

Speech impediments are a very sensitive issue. No instructions, no criticizing, we don't want to focus on the fact that something is wrong. But at the same time, we want to actively create the environment of smooth speech and by games and activities ingrain confidence in your toddler.

And when I say environment it's not like some exercise you're doing with your kid. It's the way you want to speak now. Of course, you don't have to speak this way at work, but to set a speaking pattern you need to be real with your kid.

It's not monotonous or robotic speaking, don't be afraid of that speech, you can still give all the intonations, shades, and colors that you want to give to your speech. The more real you are with this speaking, the more you use it, the better the chances that your child will not develop stuttering.