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Tips for Educators
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 Things
Teachers Can Do to Help A Child Who Stutters:
- Meeting with
parents of a child who stutters before or soon after the
beginning of classes will help you learn the parents’
concerns and expectations.
- Contact the
speech-language pathologist working with the child to
see what suggestions they may have for helping the child.
Find out what the objectives are. If the child is not
in a therapy program, contact the school speech-language
pathologist for guidance.
- Encourage
good talking manners in the classroom: No one interrupts,
talks for or finishes words for anyone else.
- Don’t
let the child who stutters get away with not meeting your
expectations for behavior or academic performance just
because of the stuttering.
- As much as
possible, treat the child who stutters just as you do
all the other children in your classroom, with the exception
of special assistance with oral reading or oral recitation.
- The child
should be encouraged to perform all classroom oral assignments,
even though they may need some modification or special
assistance with the task (for example, reading in unison
with another student, or spelling aloud one-on-one with
you or an assistant, instead of before the entire class).
- Talk with
the child about oral recitation requirements in your class,
how they feel about it and what you can do to help.
- Give the
child oral recitation assignments in advance, and encourage
home practice, in order to increase fluency.
- Allow the
child enough time to talk (for example, when answering
a question in class). Many children who stutter have trouble
starting to talk.
- Don’t
supply words for the child, teach tricks like deep breaths,
finger snapping, etc., or ask the child to substitute
an easy word for a hard one.
- Avoid any
simplistic suggestions like “Slow down”, “Take
a deep breath”, or “Think before you speak”,
etc.
- Praise the
child when they participate verbally in classroom activities.
Praise what they say, not how they said it.
- If you experience
feelings of discomfort when listening to a child’s
stuttering, maintain good eye contact, showing that you
are interested in what is being said. Do your best to
maintain pleasant facial expressions and a relaxed body
posture while the child is speaking to you.
- Be careful
not to convey a sense of time pressure to the child. Rapid
turn-taking and frequent interruptions also convey a sense
of time pressure and should be minimized.
- Know that
your caring enough to do these things can make a big difference!
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Handling Teasing in the School Environment:
 For
children who are being ridiculed by their peers about their
stuttering, it is helpful to problem solve a solution with
the child’s speech therapist, if possible. If not,
the following are some solutions that may work in your classroom.
- It is best
to deal with each instance quickly and to reassure the
child that the teasing was not kind or appropriate. Talk
to the child directly about what was said and how that
made the child feel. Validate the child’s feelings.
- If possible,
talk with the perpetrators as quickly as possible. Explain
how their comments were hurtful and un-supportive. Explore
why the teasing occurred. Many times children tease when
they don’t understand something they are seeing
or hearing.
- Discuss teasing
with the entire class in a general fashion. Talk about
individual differences and strengths and weaknesses of
the class in general. Explain the need for tolerance of
these differences and set up a “zero tolerance”
policy for teasing. In addition, explore suggestions for
handling teasing and providing support for peers who are
being teased. Many times children need to role play hurtful
situations in order to be able to handle them better and
to understand the negative impact teasing can have. It
is recommended that the discussion not be specific to
the stuttering, but rather general in nature.
- Talk with
the parents of children who are being teased and who are
teasing. Children do not always share information with
their parents and it is important that this happen in
a timely manner. Excessive teasing about stuttering can
result in behavior issues and increased difficulty with
stuttering. The child who stutters may begin to limit
their participation in classroom activities in order to
avoid being teased.
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