Stuttering & Fluency Disorder Services
Can County Speech help me?
Most likely. We certainly have the education, training and experience to provide comprehensive evaluations, therapy and consultations to children and their parents and teachers as well as to adults of all ages. The County Speech staff, led by Dr. Thile, the agency Director, has a long history of success serving clients with fluency disorders. Prospective clients (parents concerned about stuttering/fluency issues, as well as adolescents and adults considering facing the debilitating social/professional consequences of a fluency disorder) have found it helpful to talk with our former and current clients to get a better undertaking of the therapy process. Dr. Thile will personally talk with you (at no charge by telephone) to help you decide if our services are right for you. Dr. Thile is a recognized expert on fluency disorders with many years of experience. In order to devote his full-time to his private practice, Dr. Thile retired in June 2000 as professor Emeritus from San Diego State University where he taught the graduate seminar in Stuttering/Fluency Disorders for 38 years. The stuttering Foundation of America (a non-profit organization helping those who stutter) recommends Dr. Thile to San Diego County residents.
Services for Adults & Children
The best time to contact us is when you first have concerns about you or your child’s speech. We promise not to recommend unnecessary services. In fact, a brief consultation may serve to reduce the need for professional intervention; or a consultation may begin to arrest the increasing severity of an incipient (beginning stage) fluency disorder. If an evaluation is indicated, children are seen in a play-based setting with no aversive or negative consequences, followed by a parent conference (with the child not present) to discuss diagnostic findings and recommendations for therapy (if indicated) and detailed suggestions for parents and teachers.
What should I know as a parent about stuttering?
First, lets get in the habit of not using the word “stuttering”; when we refer to whatever our concerns are in the child’s speech as “stuttering”, it can only due damage and not “help” the situation. If we need to label a concern or possible disorder, let’s call it a “fluency problem” or a possible “fluency disorder”. If we are referring to what a child is doing (of concern) when he talks, lets refer to his behavior, or what he does, not what he has. For example, your child may be “getting stuck on some words” or, he may be repeating words, or the initial sounds of words, or prolonging sounds. To label these dysfluencies as “stuttering” may inadvertently call attention to your child’s speech differences and create or increase a self-awareness that could lead to even more severe dysfluencies and an advanced form of the disorder.
Information about Fluency and Dysfluency
Note: The following are excerpts from If your child stutters: A Guide for Parents, published by The Stuttering Foundation of America. You may want to visit their website: www.stutteringhelp.org
Does my child stutter?
Speech begins with the first cry at birth. It then develops rapidly during the first two years as the child learns to make meaningful sounds and words. Later, between the ages of 2 and 6, he may begin to have noticeable difficulties in speaking smoothly and freely, especially when starting to use sentences. All children repeat words and phrases, hesitate often, and have occasional difficulty with the smooth flow of words, but some have more trouble than others and for longer periods of time.
If your child has been having this type of trouble, you may wonder if he or she is beginning to stutter. Will it get worse or will it go away? If you think your child is stuttering, should you do something, and if so, what?
Is it Stuttering?
Stuttering interrupts the flow of speech, but so do many other things. All of us repeat words or syllables occasionally; no one has speech that is perfectly smooth. We all hesitate, insert noises or words, get syllables mixed up, go back and revise sentences, or try to say two words at the same time. When these things happen, we end up confused or stuck for an instant.
The young child who is just learning to talk will naturally stumble more often than adults and older children. The smoothness or fluency of everyone’s speech also varies tremendously with internal feelings and external circumstances. These variations in fluency are more extreme in the young child.
Because children with normal disfluencies show many of the same behaviors found in stuttering, it may be difficult for you to distinguish them from stuttering. Moreover, these vary in severity and frequency depending on time, circumstance, and the feelings of the speaker.
Therefore, if you are concerned about your child’s speech, it is probably best to let a speech-language pathologist determine whether your child is actually stuttering.
How Does a Speech-Language Pathologist* Decide if Your Child is Beginning to Stutter?
Certain signs indicate a child is in the beginning stages of stuttering. During a speech evaluation, some children do not display those behaviors that have concerned their parents. Therefore, if you decide to see a speech-language pathologist, your knowledge of the signs of early stuttering together with your day-to-day contact with your child make you the best source of information. You can describe how your child talks, as well as how often and how consistently the disfluencies occur, which will help the speech pathologist determine whether your child is stuttering.
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