Research on children who stutter - situation should not be ignored

Parents who notice their young child beginning to stutter should seek help right

away; and help is available at most public libraries including the Andrews Public Library in Andrews, North Carolina.

In the past, experts incorrectly believed that paying attention to a child's stuttering would exacerbate the situation. It was even feared that offering the child therapy "would arouse the child's awareness and cause more stuttering," said Ehud Yairi, speech-language pathologist an researcher at the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana and Tel-Aviv University.

However, research by Yairi published in the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research reveals that all children may be aware of the differences between fluent speech and stuttering as early as age three, and that they often display a social preference for fluent-speaking children by the time they are four years old.

"These findings should provide support to the important idea that we should shift from a 'hands-off' approach to more direct therapy techniques, and even more so with school-age children" added Barry Guitar, Ph.D., of University of Vermont. "Any time parents are concerned about a child's fluency," notes Jane

Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation of America, "they should educate themselves about the disorder and the many ways they can work to prevent stuttering from becoming a chronic problem."

A new book, If Your Child Stutters: A Guide for Parents, also available in Spanish, answers questions that parents and teachers often have. Written by leading experts, it describes the difference between normal disfluencies and stuttering and gives tips for parents of ways to help their child immediately.

For a copy, parents, teachers, librarians, and others may contact the 60-year-old nonprofit Stuttering Foundation of America, P.O. Box 11749, Memphis, TN 38111-0749; 1-800-992-9392; e-mail info@stutteringhelp.org; or visit www.stutteringhelp.org (Spanish web site www.tartarmudez. org).