Pediatric Nurses are on the Front Lines of Stuttering Information

Blog by Jane Fraser

DailyNurse.com

Within the stuttering community, the parental fear that a child is beginning to stutter is very well known—and very real. One in 20 children will stutter for a time during their development. One in 100 will continue to stutter after adolescence, and potentially, for a lifetime.

At the Stuttering Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee, our email inbox and toll free number (800-992-9392) receive inquiries from anxious parents every day wanting to understand the cause, the treatment, and the likelihood of permanency of stuttering. Most importantly, they want to know what they can do to help their child.

Pediatric nurses are on the front lines of stuttering information distribution. When a concerned parent first notices any speech irregularities, they often visit their pediatrician for advice. A parent takes a toddler in for a wellness check-up and discusses the concerns—repeating words, syllables, or phrases. Sometimes they tell of a block—when no words come out—or facial expressions and irregular movements. The parents are always worried. This is often the first time stuttering is brought up in a clinical setting—and pediatric nurses have the first chance to offer expert information.

For more than 70 years, the Foundation has provided current, trusted information about stuttering for the pediatric medical community to share in the clinical setting. Our books, brochures, videos, and referrals have reached those seeking help in more than 135 countries around the world—and we work hard to ensure that pediatric nurses know where to turn for information they can share when they suspect a child is stuttering. Our website has an entire section dedicated to the pediatric office.

The Foundation has collected several tools for the pediatric health care community, including:

Checklist for referral
A risk factors chart
Differential diagnosis guidelines
7 Tips for parents
The etiology of stuttering

The Foundation has worked for decades with pediatric nurses and doctors to provide stuttering information for families in their time of need. The onset of stuttering can be a confusing time for a new parent and the Foundation helps support pediatric nurses with information that can help put parents at ease.

Jane Fraser is president of the Stuttering Foundation and co-author of If Your Child Stutters: A Guide for Parents, 8th edition. She is also vice president of the Action for Stammering Children, Michael Palin Centre in London.

Posted Dec. 13, 2019

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Frank Wolf

This Virginian congressman has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1981. The longtime supporter of the Stuttering Foundation drew national attention to childhood stuttering in 2006 when he submitted an article about Tiger Woods from the SFA newsletter to the Congressional Record. The congressman is featured in the Stuttering Foundation's Famous People Who Stutter brochure.

Bruce Willis

While the world knows Bruce Willis as an A-list actor, few know that he struggled with stuttering throughout his first 20 years.

Walter Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in West Germany to his German mother, Marlene, and his American GI father, David Willis. The family settled in David’s hometown of Penns Grove, New Jersey in 1957, and the couple has three other children.

Kenyon Martin

Kenyon Martin, the basketball sensation who was named to the NBA’s All Star Team in 2004, joins other famous people who stutter in a new brochure. The brochure - which unfolds into a small poster - is available free of charge from The Stuttering Foundation.

The poster is intended to give children and adults who stutter inspiration as they grapple with their speech disorder.

Bob Love

Bob Love has dreamt about being a great public speaker since his early days in Bastrop Louisiana, even though, as a young man, he could barely put two words together, let alone speak a full sentence.

In spite of his severe stuttering disability, Bob Love, the son of a sharecropper, rose to become a Chicago Bulls NBA superstar, whose records were eventually surpassed by Michael Jordan. Throughout his entire athletic career, Bob Love kept his stuttering a secret from the fans who adored him, thinking he could do his “talking” on the basketball court.

John Melendez

He is a talented musician, actor, and comedian. Listen to a podcast.