Fluency

The following are fluency strategies that you can practice at home while reading, having a conversation, or playing a game:

• Light Contact - Touch your articulators (lips and tongue) together very gently as you speak.

• Easy Onset - This is also called "easy starts". Start your airflow (as in take a breath and blow some air out) before you speak.

• Slow Speech - Reduce your rate of speech so you are speaking slower than usual.

• Pausing - Group words together and pause between sets of words.

• Cancellations - When you have bumpy speech, finish your word.  Then try again after pausing and taking a breath.

• Pull Outs - When you start to have bumpy speech, stop in the middle of the stutter and start again.

• Stretchy Speech - Stretch your words out so they are long and smooth.

Have your child choose a strategy and practice using it.  The following are suggestions for Question/Answer games that you can play while practicing these strategies:

• Hedbanz

• 20 Questions

• Guess Who?

• I Spy

Rapid naming tasks often help students improve fluency by increasing processing speed and decreasing wait-time between responses.  The following games are ways to practice rapid naming tasks:

• Scattergories

• 5 Second Rule

• Word on the Street

• Taboo

You can also ask your child to name as many words as they can in a category such as: animals, places, occupations, foods, colors, etc.  These activities can help naming tasks become more automatic.

For additional resources please visit The Stuttering Foundation at https://www.stutteringhelp.org/