For many people, stuttering happens more often when there is time pressure. What is time pressure? Time pressure is when we have to do something quickly, by a deadline. All kinds of situations have increased time pressure:
*Leaving the house to get somewhere on time
*Anticipating a turn to read aloud in class
*Ordering food at McDonald's
*Answering a question
*Getting into a conversation
Using speech tools when there is time pressure is an advanced skill. That is why we begin practicing speech tools WITHOUT time pressure. This is why adult listeners wait 2 seconds before responding to children - it slows down the pace of conversation. This is why teens learn to drive in parking lots and side streets before attempting the highway!
1. Parents need to change how the family does some things in order to reduce time pressure. There are many ways to work on this, for example, preparing for events ahead of time.
2. There needs to be a peaceful time each day when children can enjoy life at their own pace.
3. Children and parents can agree on times when the child should wait to talk. When adults are busy with other important things, such as talking on the phone, children need to wait for a better time to talk with them.
4. Speech therapy includes "counter-conditioning" to time pressure. This means that the child practices speech tools in games that gradually introduce small amounts of time pressure. The child learns to 'desensitize' to the time pressure. This helps him to speak despite time pressures.
A recent study found that "...for young children and adults, broad chunks of output have been planned by the onset ...of a sentence." (Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, December 2008, Vol. 51, p. 1424, The Breadth of Coarticulatory Units in Children and Adults by Goffman, et. al.) It seems to me that this study lends support to the idea that giving a child more time to speak is giving his speech motor system the extra time it needs to plan ahead for a more fluent sentence.
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