Children Who Stutter

My nine-year-old daughter stutters.  It is worse during spontaneous speech (if she's telling you about something that happened at school for example) and times of stress for her or if there is a lot of stress in the home (wow was it bad when my stepson was here regularly during his "behavioral problem" period - which was from about age 4 to age 12 for him!).  She sings beautifully and never stutters.  She can read aloud from a book and not stutter.  She was recently teased at school by a boy over her stuttering.  Why are kids so mean?  It only makes the stutter worse, not better, when she's upset!  She was upset over the teasing.  I was mad that kids can be so rotten to each other.  We handled it by talking to her speech therapist about it, who talked to both her teacher, the boy's teacher, and the Dean of Students.  I was going to introduce myself to this boy's parents and talk to them about it personally at one of my daughter's football games (he plays football) but the school handled it before the game happened and it seems to have worked.  There haven't been anymore instances of teasing.

My 11-year-old son used to stutter frequently but now stutters only occasionally.  My five-year-old stuttered badly for awhile (but we're hoping that was age-appropriate and not the same as her older siblings) since it doesn't happen often anymore.  My stepson used to stutter, as well as make gulping and other sounds. They have all been in speech therapy for their different speech issues. 

The New England Journal of Medicine (Feb 25, 2010) researched the role genetics plays in stuttering.  Their article is called Genetic Susceptibility to Stuttering.  Wow, wish they would've talked to me.  I could've told them genetic plays a huge role given our family's stuttering history (my husband was/is a stutterer as are more than half of his children).  I can't read the whole article since I'm not a member but if you want information about stuttering, the National Stuttering Association has a web site at http://www.westutter.org/.  My daughter's speech therapist sent me information home yesterday from the NSA to read...brought tears to my eyes reading about this little girl who was teased in school and how she handled it. 

I have so much paperwork over the years on their different IEP's (Individualized Education Program), speech homework, speech notes, etc., that I need document management software to keep it straight. I would love to use it to have digital copies of everything from the ex for the last 15 years too! It would save a lot of storage space that is being taken up by boxes and boxes of files!