Some parents have the shock of hearing their young child start to stutter as a toddler. I am somebody who runs a speech centre in Birmingham, England, I now help people to achieve fluency.

I met a lady who was thirty and her little boy aged four had been stuttering for quite a while. She had taken him to speech therapy and was extremely anxious as to why he was stuttering. It had possibly started because the toddlers father had quite a severe stutter, the boy may of picked up the bad habits this way.

Many other people contact me asking why their toddler has developed a stutter and asking what forms of stuttering treatments are available.

I always suggest that they keep as patient as they can and try to play games, speech games with their child. They can challenge the child to say the word fluently, they show their child how it should be said and then bet them that they can't do it themselves. When they do manage to say that particular word fluently they then heap lots of praise onto the child, telling them how clever they are and how proud mommy and daddy are of them. I even advise giving them an award like a small chocolate bar.

If instead of being patient parents or relatives are aggressive, saying things like: "Get your words boy" "Spit it out!" These types of comments can have a very negative effect and make that child withdraw into their shell. This may to some people seem very obvious to say, however you would not believe the amount of people who have told me this is what they were told as an infant.

Stephen Hill