Treatment Can Help People of All Ages Speak With Increased Fluency

EARLY TREATMENTis available for children with speech disorders. Above, students in a speech therapy class share their questions about insects on a board in front of the classroom.

LAKELAND | When in a smooth, sultry voice, Marilyn Monroe sang "Happy Birthday" to President Kennedy in 1962, it was certainly not apparent that a speech disorder had been part of her past.

Similarly, as Bruce Willis delivered countless one-liners in five "Die Hard" movies through three decades, few fans knew that classmates had taunted Willis as a schoolboy due to the same disorder.

Stuttering is a speech disorder that affects the normal flow of speech for nearly three million Americans. While stuttering does not discriminate based on age, it most often affects children developing language skills between the ages of 2 and 5.

In Polk County, Child Find is a federally-funded center that provides screening and information about programs available within the community for children ages 3 to 5. The program can assist in placing children in appropriate education programs that may help treat their stuttering.

Though there is no cure for stuttering, treatment can help people of all ages speak with increased fluency and reduced frequency of disrupted speech. Early treatment for very young children can actually prevent the likelihood of developmental stuttering evolving into a lifelong challenge.

According to Cindi Garrett and Lisa Reuther, speech language 4pathologists at Lakeland Regional Medical Center, most treatment programs available for people who stutter are "behavioral" designed to teach specific skills or behaviors that lead to improved verbal communication.

Garrett and Reuther teach people who stutter to control the rate at which they speak and to monitor their breathing. Using shorter phrases and sentences initially, people who stutter learn to produce smooth speech at faster rates, in longer sentences, and in more challenging situations until speech sounds both fluent and natural.

Garrett and Reuther agree that maintenance sessions are often necessary after the completion of formal intervention to prevent relapse. They also agree that collaboration with parents and schools is highly beneficial.

Polk County Schools' Assistant Superintendent of Learning Support, Nancy Woolcock, concurred.

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Treatment Can Help People of All Ages Speak With Increased Fluency