Evidence shows that the majority of children outgrow this phase of non-fluency over a few weeks or months, although at the time this can be hard to believe. However, our advice would be to refer your child to a Speech and Language Therapist as soon as you can. The BSA can provide you with local details. Although your child may not need regular therapy, the therapist can carry out a full assessment, discuss advice with you and help you to monitor your child's fluency. In the meantime, to support your child through this process, we also advise you to follow the guidelines and suggestions provided here and elsewhere in the BSA leaflets. You may be surprised to see what difference these little changes and adjustments can make.

Remain observant of your child's speaking patterns but try and resist seeing it as a 'problem'. Although stammering is not caused by parents in any way, your anxiety can easily transfer itself onto the child, who may come to feel s/he is doing something 'wrong' or that s/he is the problem in some way. In fact s/he is just struggling a bit at the moment and the stage may well pass.

Be supportive. Try and deal with the difficulties your child is currently having with speaking in the same way as you would deal with any other difficulty s/he may have e.g. in walking or fine motor co-ordination for example eating with a spoon. If you feel it is appropriate, acknowledge the difficulty in a matter of fact way, without making it too much of a big deal that may result in him/her feeling self-conscious.

Say something encouraging if the child is looking distressed or embarrassed, just as you would if s/he were distressed or embarrassed about anything else. You could say something like: "I can hear that those words/sounds are a bit hard for you at the moment - don't worry. It can be like that sometimes when you are learning to talk."

Try and resist labelling the difficulty your child is having as "stammering" at this early stage. This can be unhelpful. You could try using expressions like 'making words jump', 'bumpy speech', 'getting stuck' instead, or asking the child for their own words or descriptions of what is happening.

Talk over your anxieties with someone. Don't bottle them up. Ring our Helpline and talk over your feelings with our Information and Support Officer and keep in touch with BSA over these initial weeks and months if it helps. The more you can deal with your own anxiety the less chance there will be of your child feeling anxious about what may be a very natural stage of development. These are early days.