Why children stutter

When a child starts to develop a stutter it comes as a shock to everyone involved and can be a very upsetting and stressful time for both the parents and for the child. I myself developed a stutter at the age of four or five. My mother had left work to look after me when I was born and I started to talk as normal. Everything was fine until I started school. My mother who now had more time on her hands decided to re-start work and I would now be going to a friend of the familys after school. This friend was called Jean and she had a son my age called Graham. On the first day I spent at her house everything was going well until Jean called us in for our evening meal. Meal times at my own house were a very relaxed affair, we were able to eat our food wherever we wanted to in the house. At Jean's house they ate in a dining room around a dining table. There were a lot of people around the table who I did not know very well and eating in front of them all itself made me feel quite uncomfortable. During the meal people were asking me various questions and for whatever reason, I found it difficut to answer and started to stutter. This was the first day of my life as a person who has a stutter. My parents a few months later took me to speech therapy, the speech therapist advised them that most children will grow out of their stutter. I continued unfortunately to stutter until I was twenty two. At this stage I decided I had had enough and that it was time to overcome the stutter. Stephen Hill ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------