Social And Environmental Factors

Please remember, parents and families do not cause a child to stammer, but a child's environment is important. The attitudes, behaviours and events that occur at home and school do have an impact on a child in all sorts of ways, including their fluency.

Most families' daily lives are busy and demanding. There are lots of things to organise and to remember, full schedules of activities, places to be, clothes to find, mealtimes, bedtimes, social lives! There are constant demands and pressures, fun times and conflicts, anxieties and health worries - all normal parts of life. Some children who stammer may find it difficult to keep up the same pace, or may even be trying to get in ahead.

However, the fact is that stammering and fast pace are not good bedfellows.

Our task is to recognise and understand the usual pace of life, observe those aspects which cannot be changed and then try, where possible, to adjust those aspects which can be sensibly controlled or modified. The message is:

If everyone talks at once and at a rapid rate, the child may try to match it.
If everyone uses very complicated language, the child may try to copy.
If certain situations are demanding, the child may feel pressured.

None of these is easy when you are also stammering.

The view that the environment plays an important role in a child's development of fluency is supported by valuable clinical evidence which shows that helping families to identify small changes in the way they respond and interact with their stammering child and can be really helpful.