Nursery World - Positive Relationships: Speech

Practitioners can do a lot to help young children overcome their stammering, says Jennie Lindon.

Q: A two-year-old girl in my nursery was making rapid progress with her language but now that she's at the stage where's she's trying to form sentences, she tends to stutter. Can you explain why this is happening? And how should we respond?

A: Young children face a significant task in learning to talk and understand what is said to them. It is not unusual that they go through a period when their words do not flow as easily as they wish.

Young boys and girls often stop, search for the words they want, substitute different words, use meaningful gestures or their versions of 'um' and 'er'. They persevere in getting their message across, and you can observe them using a variety of strategies to cope with their limited language until their working vocabulary has expanded.

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