Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) help people who stutter speak with more ease and confidence, and early help matters most for young children. Speech Specialists provides stuttering therapy at our clinics in Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, Mississauga, Brampton, Whitby, Pickering, and Hamilton. Virtual sessions are also available for clients across Ontario, Canada. If you’re unsure where to start, book an assessment and a registered SLP will explain what they find.
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Stuttering is a speech pattern in which sounds are repeated, stretched out, or blocked, so the flow of speech gets interrupted. A child might say “b-b-ball,” hold the first sound of “sssun,” or open their mouth to speak and have nothing come out for a moment. Everyone repeats a word or loses their place now and then. In stuttering it happens more often, lasts longer, and takes more effort.
SLPs call the repetitions, stretches, and blocks core behaviours. Secondary behaviours grow up around them as a person tries to push through a stutter or avoid it: tensing the jaw or face, blinking, looking away, tapping a foot, or swapping a hard word for an easier one. Word avoidance is easy to miss because it can make speech sound smoother while the person works much harder underneath.
There is an emotional side too, and for many people it matters as much as the speech. Worry before speaking. Dread when it’s time to say their own name. Ordering the second-choice dish because it’s easier to say, or staying quiet in class or in meetings. Over time, avoiding situations can shrink a person’s life more than the stutter itself does.
Stuttering also changes from day to day. A child can speak smoothly for a week and then stutter a lot for a few days. An adult may find phone calls easy on Tuesday and nearly impossible on Thursday. Tiredness, excitement, and stress can all make it more noticeable. That up-and-down pattern is typical, and it doesn’t mean therapy has stopped working.
For the bigger picture, the Stuttering Foundation estimates that about 1% of people stutter, which is more than 80 million people worldwide, and that stuttering affects about four times as many males as females. No one knows the exact cause.
Many children go through a period of stuttering while their language is growing fast, and a good number outgrow it. The catch is that nobody can tell which child will. The Stuttering Foundation reports that about 5% of children stutter for six months or more at some point, and that about three quarters of them recover by late childhood, which leaves roughly 1% of people with a long-term stutter. The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center notes that, at least half the time, recovery in young children happens within two years of onset.
If your two- or three-year-old has started repeating sounds, take a breath. You didn’t cause it, and it’s common. Busy weeks, a move, or a new sibling don’t cause stuttering, though stress can make it more noticeable.
Stuttering is also more common in boys than in girls. The Stuttering Foundation puts the ratio at roughly four males for every female, and its call data and the research behind it suggest girls are more likely to recover. Because the odds can’t be predicted for any one child, the next section covers when to book an assessment rather than waiting.
Consider booking with an SLP if any of these sound familiar:
If you’re worried, don’t wait and see. An assessment is low-risk. The worst outcome is hearing that your child’s speech is developing typically and going home with a few tips. The best outcome is catching a pattern early, when therapy tends to work best. The Stuttering Foundation advises seeing an SLP who specializes in stuttering when it lasts beyond three to six months or seems severe.
A good first step is our free speech and language screening for kids. There are also age-specific screening pages for the 2 year, 3 year, 4 year, 5 year, 6 year, 7 year, 9 year, and 11 year checkpoints.
An SLP listens to speech in several situations, because stuttering shows up differently when reading aloud, chatting with a parent, answering a question, or talking on the phone. Many assessments include a recording of a conversation. Alongside the speech samples, the SLP takes a case history: when the stuttering began, how it has changed, whether it runs in the family, and how language and development look otherwise.
Then comes the part a speech sample can’t capture. How does stuttering affect school, friendships, work, or family life? How does the child, teen, or adult feel about speaking? A seven-year-old who stutters only a little but dreads reading aloud needs something different from a teen who stutters often and shrugs it off.
You leave with a written report and an individualized treatment plan for your records, the same as with every service we offer. If your SLP recommends monitoring instead of starting therapy right away, they’ll explain what to watch for and when to come back. You can read more about how we work on our approach page.
One note for adults: if stuttering begins suddenly, or follows a head injury, stroke, or a new medication, see a doctor first. Sudden changes can have a medical cause that should be ruled out before speech therapy. If a stroke is part of your story, our stroke recovery page explains how we can help.
Therapy looks different at each stage of life. The table at the end of this section gives the short version.
Therapy for preschoolers is mostly play with a purpose, and parents are part of the team. Many approaches for this age are parent-coached, including the Lidcombe Program and Palin Parent-Child Interaction (PCI). In a typical session the SLP plays with your child while coaching you on how to respond to stuttering and how to adjust the way you talk and play together. Between visits you do short, relaxed practice at home each day. A young child shouldn’t feel like they’re being drilled. Our pediatric speech therapy page covers how we work with younger children more broadly.
School-age children are more aware of their stutter, and some have started to notice how classmates react. Therapy builds easier ways of speaking, such as a slower rate, gentle starts to words, and easing out of a block. It also makes stuttering something a child can talk about instead of hide. Many children need a plan for teasing: what to say, who to tell, and what isn’t their job to fix. We work on classroom confidence, like putting a hand up or reading aloud, and parents stay involved because practice outside the clinic is where new skills stick.
Teens usually steer their own goals, and a good SLP lets them. Sessions often cover self-advocacy (telling a teacher or coach what helps), choices about when to use fluency tools and when to let a stutter happen, oral presentations, group projects, and the social situations where a teen just wants to be part of the group. Some teens want smoother speech. Some want to stop dreading class. Some want both. We ask which one.
Adult therapy usually draws on two families of techniques. Fluency shaping changes how speech is produced, using a slower rate, easy starts to words, and controlled breathing to make speech smoother. Stuttering modification keeps the stutter but changes how it happens, so moments of stuttering are easier and less tense. Alongside those, desensitization means stuttering openly on purpose until it carries less fear, and avoidance work targets the words you swap out and the calls you let go to voicemail. Adults often arrive with specific targets in mind: job interviews, introductions at meetings, phone calls, and presentations.
| Age group | Typical focus | Who’s involved |
|---|---|---|
| Preschool (about 2 to 5) | Parent-coached strategies, play-based sessions, short daily practice at home | Child, parents, SLP |
| School age (about 6 to 12) | Easier speech, handling teasing, classroom confidence, practice outside the clinic | Child, parents, SLP, with teacher input when helpful |
| Teens | Self-advocacy, communication choices, oral presentations, peer situations | Teen (sets the goals), SLP, parents as needed |
| Adults | Fluency shaping, stuttering modification, desensitization, reducing avoidance | Adult client and SLP |
Therapy doesn’t erase stuttering for everyone, and a clinician who promises otherwise isn’t being straight with you. What it can do is reduce the struggle, build confidence, and make communication easier. For many people that is the difference between dreading a conversation and getting through it. The Stuttering Foundation says there are no instant miracle cures, but that a specialist can help children, teens, and adults make significant progress toward fluency.
Goals differ from person to person. Some people want more fluent speech. Some want easier stuttering, with less tension and fewer struggle behaviours. Some want to say the word they’d normally avoid, order the dish they actually want, or raise a hand in class. The client sets the goal, and the goal can change over time. For a young child, parents and the SLP set it together.
At school, the hard moments tend to be reading aloud, oral exams, presentations, and answering when called on. Talking to teachers early helps, because many teachers aren’t sure what to do and are glad to be told. With your consent, your SLP can share recommendations with the school, such as alternatives to being called on cold or a quieter setting for oral assessments. In Ontario, supports like these can be written into an Individual Education Plan (IEP), though whether a student receives one is decided through the school board’s own process.
At work, the pressure points are interviews, phone calls, introductions, and meetings. Many adults practise these with their SLP through role-play until the situation feels familiar. Whether to mention stuttering at the start of an interview is a personal decision, and both choices are valid.
School tips
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Work tips
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Both work for many clients, and telepractice has research support for stuttering. Carey and colleagues (2010) ran a randomized trial comparing telehealth and clinic delivery of the Camperdown Program for people who stutter and found telehealth was not inferior. A separate randomized trial of telehealth delivery of the Lidcombe Program found it efficacious for preschool children who can’t reach a clinic.
In-person visits tend to help most for young children and for hands-on coaching, when the SLP and a parent need to be in the same room with the toys. Online sessions suit teens, adults, busy families, and anyone who lives far from a clinic. They also let you practise in the places that matter, such as your own desk or kitchen table. Some families mix the two. Details are on our online speech therapy page.
Every clinic has free visitor parking. You can also see all locations on our clinics page.
We also see clients from across Durham Region, York Region, Peel Region, and Halton Region, as well as Hamilton. If a clinic isn’t close to you, online sessions reach anywhere in Ontario, CA. See the full Greater Toronto Area page or our list of cities we serve.
READY TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP?
Book a Stuttering Assessment →
Personalized support for more confident communication.
There isn’t one best therapy. The right approach depends on age and goals. Preschoolers often do well with parent-coached programs such as Lidcombe or Palin PCI. Older children, teens, and adults usually work on fluency shaping, stuttering modification, and reducing avoidance. A speech-language pathologist matches the approach to the person after an assessment.
Not reliably. Many young children stop stuttering on their own or with early therapy, but there is no instant cure, and some people continue to stutter into adulthood. Therapy can reduce struggle, build confidence, and make speaking easier. Many people who stutter go on to communicate well and do things they once avoided.
Many toddlers repeat sounds or words while their language is growing quickly, and some of them outgrow it. Book an assessment if it lasts several months, runs in the family, comes with visible tension or frustration, or starts to make your child avoid talking. If you’re worried, an assessment is a low-risk way to find out.
Maybe. About three quarters of children who stutter recover by late childhood, according to the Stuttering Foundation, and girls tend to recover more often than boys. But nobody can predict which child will, so waiting only leaves you guessing. An early assessment shows whether therapy would help now.
Yes. Teens and adults can make real progress at any age. Therapy for older clients focuses on goals they choose, such as easier speech, less tension, fewer avoided words, and more confidence at school or work. Fluency shaping, stuttering modification, and desensitization are common tools, and many teens and adults do well in online sessions.
No one knows the exact cause. Research points to several factors working together, including family history and differences in how the speech muscles and brain develop. It isn’t caused by nervousness, emotional trauma, or anything parents did, though stress can make stuttering more noticeable.
It depends on age, how long the person has stuttered, and the goals you set. Young children who start early often need a shorter course of therapy, while teens and adults may work over a longer period and return for tune-ups. Your SLP will set goals at the start and review progress with you regularly.
No. Anxiety doesn’t cause stuttering, and people who stutter are no more likely to have emotional problems than people who don’t, according to the Stuttering Foundation. But anxiety can make stuttering feel worse, and years of stuttering can lead to worry about speaking. Therapy addresses both the speech and the feelings around it.
Yes. Research supports telepractice for stuttering, including randomized trials of telehealth treatment for children and adults. Online therapy often suits teens, adults, busy families, and people far from a clinic. Younger children often do better in person, at least at first. We offer both, so we can match the format to your situation.
Fees depend on the type and length of session, so contact us for current fees. OHIP doesn’t cover private speech therapy, but many extended health plans do, and we provide receipts for claims. Funding such as Jordan’s Principle or JACC may also help eligible families. Your insurer can confirm your coverage before you book.
For more information, please fill out a contact form and a registered speech therapist will contact you on a priority basis.