Question
My child is three years old and has been stuttering recently. This has never happened before. They used to be able to speak entire sentences well, and they are very smart and have good expressive abilities. However, they occasionally stumble over their words when trying to express something, not all the time. Sometimes it’s ‘I, I, I, I’, ‘You, You, You’, which is very frustrating and I don’t know what to do. Should we go to the hospital?
Answer
Stuttering often occurs between the ages of two and five, which is a period of rapid growth in children’s language and psychological development. At this age, children become more interested in their surroundings and their vocabulary expands rapidly. However, because their language skills are not yet mature, they may struggle to choose the right words and their speech may sometimes seem less fluent, with hesitations and repetitions. This is a natural developmental phenomenon that usually disappears as the child grows older. For treatment of stuttering, it is important to start as early as possible and to eliminate any adverse factors in the environment, such as avoiding the deliberate imitation or ridicule of others around them.