Can anyone help? My little lad has slowly been developing a stammer since he started school. I assumed it would pass as it only seemed to intensify when he was excited and I could see he was trying to rush out words. But the last couple of weeks I notice that he totally blocking on words and repeating words and sounds and has become quite frustrated by it. I don;t want to take him to a speech therapist just yet as I don't want it to make an issue of it for him or lead him to feel there is something wrong, but I have been doing lots of internet research to educate myself.

Has anyone here had any success by treating stammer homeopathically? If you think you can help here are some pointers.

He is by nature a very bright and bubbly boy, but very shy and self conscious with strangers. He moves and thinks very quickly, but can become quite dreamy and hesitant when in stressful situations, i.e. starting school, answering questions from adults he doesn't know etc. His mood can change rapidly - he can be wailing his eyes out one minute, and laughing the next! He likes to joke a lot and play on words. He is very tacile and cuddlesome with people he knows.

He likes bacon, smoked meats, olives and sweets and dislikes creamy food, eggs and baked beans.

He is naturally a hot, sweaty child and wees a lot! He has a very agile, nimble body.

If anyone can help, I'd be extremely grateful!!


Emma

He will probably grow out of it but do find a professional classical homeopath in your area. Get in touch with the Society of Homeopaths or look at their ad in the local Yellow pages.

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RSHom - Registered Homeopath

Thank you for your advice, however, I don't want to take him to any type of practitioner at the moment for the reasons explained above. I feel that drawing attention to it may make it worse. He is very sensitive. I would like to try a remedy at home first. I forgot to mention before he has always been quite fearful of many things. I chuckle to myself that some people wear their heart on their sleeve but this little one wears his nervous system on his sleeve!! He has a twin brother by the way (who is completely different - but they get on brilliantly).

Tx

Apart from homeopathy, as you mentioned he is a bright boy, my assumption is that he is being bullied at school or you are doing something which has triggered this response.

Evaluate your response to his needs and check out his routine at school. Ask some of his friends (not him directly) and I won't be amazed if you find the answer.

First ask the friends and then the teacher. It could be a teacher's response to him which is triggering this stammer.

An easy test, have him skip school for say a week and you will know the answer or if a vacation is coming up, you will know where the problem lies.

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Don't take life too seriously, it aint permanent.

If you want to treat the boy with homeopathy, you have to take him to a practitioner. You don't have to draw attention to the stammer itself, as the homeopathic remedy won't be given for the stammer alone anyway! You will need a constitutional remedy for this case, so it will only be one thing among many considered for the remedy you'll give.

A practitioner would need to take the case in person and gather a lot more information than the very little you've given here, anyway, so there's really no point in giving you a list of remedies "for stammering" to try out.

Take him to a practitioner. It'll be the best thing you could for him--what ever the cause of this problem (be it teachers, or school situations, or physiological development difficulties...all will be resolved with the remedy anyway).

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...and deliverance has many faces<br />but grace<br />is an aquaintance of mine

Hi, thanks for your suggestions although I will point out that it's a myth that that stammers are "triggered" or caused by parents or events as people are genetically and physiologically predisposed to stammer. However they can be exacerbated by situations. I think having to talk in front of the class has probably led to the intensification (I can completely identify with that feeling - yikes!!) as I know his school promote this early on.

His school has a very good anti-bullying policy and he (and his brother) always tell me if someone has hurt them in the playground so I don't think that is an issue.

I know there is no point in giving a list of remedies out, but I thought it was worth asking for pointers to soften his difficulties right now.

Thanks,

kids do grow out of these things ... but not always. i certainly wouldn't wait any longer than into the second school year (this being the first), if the problem persists that long, before seeking help.

what you say about predisposition is true, but predispositions are themselves conditioned by a variety of factors, just for example some unexpected trauma or even normal developmental events, like beginning school, which subjects the child to an abrupt increase in a variety of psycho-social stressors.

'first-aid' approaches to helping through a temporary setback of this nature would include any of a variety of "wellness" strategies, as a more fit physical profile improves the body's ability to deal efficiently with stress. the strategy i find most useful in a wide variety of situations is removal of dairy products (milk and eggs and everything made with them) from the diet. but check your son's habits for unusual favorite foods or other sensitivities, for clues where to intervene.

commonly these are not temporary situations, however. in that case, as has been said already, see a professional. for this type of problem, i'd advise against speech therapy which is in this situation essentially a 'suppressive' regime: even if it 'works,' the psychological causes of the problem will still exist. same is true for most psychotherapies, especially behavioral ones which are also the most popular these days: if you're also following a homeopathic routine, behavioral interventions are working in the opposite direction ... i don't know if they actually antidote remedy action, but they don't help.

and i wouldn't worry about your child feeling there is something wrong: unfortunately, he almost certainly already feels this way. if he has a problem, though, the best thing to do is deal with it directly, seriously, but not hysterically, presenting the view that there are things we do to take care of problems and get on with life. this leads to feeling of mastery, replacing feelings of concern or inadequacy. it teaches good problem solving: 'take care of yourself.'

good luck to you.

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.

Well, no one really knows any reason why stammers take place. All we can do is note that the stammer exists, and, if it so happens to be the case in this situation, note that stammering was not an issue until a particular event took place.
It is truly not important at all to "find the cause", so much as it is to note the symptom and the facts surrounding it (when did it start? what makes it worse or better? what sensations occur with it? etc. etc. etc.).

You could wait to see if it dissipates as he grows, or take up a conventional treatment for it. It's up to you. But if you want to treat it homeopathically, take your son to a homeopath for a consultation and a constitutional remedy and forget about prescribing potentized medicine for the condition on your own.

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...and deliverance has many faces<br />but grace<br />is an aquaintance of mine

of course, we certainly do know, within limits, why stammering or any other pathology occurs, in a particular individual at a particular time, based on careful observation and case taking.

the fact that there are competing explanatory schemes - freudian and jungian and whatever - may fuel debate, but does nothing to undermine the fact that we are able to 'know' things about the world and how it gets to be the way it is; it's the same issue with hahnemannians and kentians and all the rest, recommending different remedies based on different methods of analysis.

the issue is knowing why you're analyzing whatever it is you're analyzing, and gearing your analysis appropriately for the goals you have in mind. and observing closely the course of treatment and correcting your interventions as you go. "causes" may generally be unimportant in homeopathic case taking - though i wouldn't be surprised if that question proved able to generate a bit of discussion in these forums - but in any case the same is not true for other forms of treatment, for example psychotherapy, or even the more informal adjunctive counseling in the homeopathic office ... unless you are saying our understanding of our circumstances, or our patients' circumstances, are haphazard guesswork. in which case, why prefer jung over freud, or anyone over anyone?

aaanyway, if stammering persists, the best approach imo would be a full 'constitutional' homeopathic treatment. even so, it's possible that a good psychodynamic psychotherapy might optimize gains in some respects; even more certainly, attention to issues of wellness will best ensure that other problems don't eventually develop in the place of this one: just because the "antioxidant" [edit: detox] action of homeopathy - so to speak - is enormously effective, doesn't mean we should be indiscriminate in our habits.

[ 28. March 2004, 23:37: Message edited by: bwv11 ]

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"The need to perform adjustments for covariates...weakens the findings." BMJ Clinical Evidence: Mental Health, (No. 11), p. 95.... It's that simple, guys: bad numbers make bad science.

Get him to sing to you!
Sounds weird but when he is stressed and starts to stammer, slow him down and make a game of it by singing your question to him and getting him to sing back to you.
It will actually engage a different centre in his brain and may help him overcome his anxiety in communicating.