FOOD INTOLERANCE NETWORK
FACTSHEET
Stuttering
This Factsheet covers
stuttering, also known as stammering, and other speech anomalies such as delay,
tic, loud voice, selective mutism, and silly noises.
Stuttering is speech
disorder in which speech is frequently disrupted by pauses and involuntary
repetitions of certain sounds, syllables, words or phases.
Stuttering can be developmental,
that is develops in childhood, or acquired due to brain injury. It has also
been induced by medications, most commonly antidepressants. One study showed
stuttering started within 2-21 days after starting medication and stopped 2-5
days after ceasing medication.
Children generally start to
stutter between the ages of three to three and a half. About 60 percent will
recover spontaneously and the rest will stutter as adults. Of the children who
recover spontaneously, about half will recover within 18 months of the
development of their stutter. Developmental stuttering tends to run in
families. Stuttering is thought to affect about 5 percent of preschoolers, just
over one percent of school aged children and under one percent of adults. Boys
are more affected than girls. The speech pathologists’ dilemma is that although
the majority of preschoolers will recover spontaneously, those who continue to
stutter will get better results if they receive therapy very early and there is
currently no way to identify which children will recover.
Since stuttering can be a
side-effect of drugs, you would expect some recognition that food chemicals
have the same effect, but the connection between stuttering and food
intolerance is not recognized in the medical literature.
Food Intolerance Network
members report that stuttering in some children is related to certain food
chemicals. As with any food intolerance symptom, children respond differently.
Reader reports suggest that stuttering can be related to any one or all of the
likely suspects (additives especially preservatives, salicylates, amines, dairy
foods and wheat).
Parents who are undertaking
the low chemical elimination diet with challenges to discover exactly which
food chemicals affect their children can identify the effects precisely. Others
report that stuttering clears up when they start the diet. Many of these
parents never bother to carry out additive challenges, saying ‘why would we
want to eat that rubbish anyway’.
Other speech-related
symptoms associated with food chemicals include loud voice, verbal tics, speech
delay.
Some typical readers’ stories:
[396] Nitrates (249-252) used in preserved meats
such as ham, bacon and hotdogs affect stuttering (March 2006)
Our two and a half year old
son had difficulty with stuttering for a few months. After my sister-in-law, a nurse, told us
about the potential dangers of nitrates for children, especially contributions
to developmental delays, we removed all nitrates from our son's diet and within
about a week the stuttering was gone. Yesterday, our son went on an outing to
the zoo with my mother. Strangely, his stuttering returned full-force today. I
called my mother to ask what he had ingested for lunch and dinner yesterday.
The glaring answer: a HOTDOG.
[395] Mashed potato challenge and stutter (March
2006)
Sulphites (220-228) are used
in a wide range of foods including dried fruit, fruit drinks, sausages (not in
meat in the
[394] Benzoates in medication and stutter (March
2006)
My daughter is allergic to
mosquitoes and while we were doing the elimination diet she was badly bitten.
Our doctor recommended daily double doses of claratyne liquid. On the second
day my daughter started to talk incessantly and stutter a little (this had
previously been a problem months ago). Then on day 3 at daycare she became
drunkish, socially withdrawn and stopped talking (selective mutism, although
not gone, had improved on failsafe). The staff at daycare had been amazed to
say the least about her improvement on the diet, so this was obvious. When my
husband came home, he picked up the bottle of antihistamine and read the label,
to my dismay it contained sodium benzoate! Well, that went in the bin, we got
claratyne tablets, she had a half, and the next day at daycare she was back to
normal.
[393] All of the common suspects affect stutter
(March 2006)
My son becomes hyper and
stutters as a result of reactions to salicylates, amines, wheat, dairy,
preservatives, colours and flavours. His older sister also stutters when
reacting but she is more tolerant of foods and other reactions are milder.
[392] Stuttering and behaviour are different
reactions to the same foods (March 2006)
My 7 year old son has been
failsafe for a couple of years now with great results. My 5 year old daughter has quite a bad
stutter and it has just dawned on me that diet may make it worse. I have often
noticed that her speech is worse when my son’s behaviour is at its worst. Her
speech therapist pointed out that it may be due to diet and that his
hyperactivity is the symptom but her symptom is stuttering. Given that they both generally eat the same
thing this makes sense. I tend to be
more lax with her diet though.
[391] 282: Speech delay due to the bread
preservative (calcium propionate 282) (March 2006)
My son had been assessed by a
speech therapist at the preschool. She diagnosed, as best she could - we
couldn't really keep Jack in the room much less anything like on-task - a
severe expressive language delay and a moderate receptive language delay. Six
weeks, later when off wheat products, he was reassessed by the same speech
pathologist, using the part of the test that Jack had not done due to being
non-cooperative. This time he seemed to have no significant receptive language
delay and was only mildly delayed in his expressive language. She said she had
never seen a child change so dramatically within such a short period of time. …
It took this family another year to discover that their child’s problem was not
the wheat in bread, but the preservative calcium propionate.
[352] ‘So much calmer’
(Nov 2004)
First of all let me tell you how wonderful it was to find
your website and help our 4 1/2 year old son (and the rest of us) lead a much
more ‘normal’ life. He's had horrible symptoms of terrible mood swings, off and
on stuttering, biting, spitting, banging his head against the wall, excessive
bedwetting, an extremely loud voice that he couldn't control, big ‘saucer’ eyes
with clenched teeth while running at me to kick and bite me, would go into
hysterics when I would ask him to do the simplest of tasks such as dressing
himself, pulling his hair hard enough to yank it out of head (and his 14 month
old sister's), screaming every name at me he knew, running behind me from
across the room gaining momentum to head butt me as hard as he could in the
back and spine and as we give him a much needed nap during the day he can't
fall asleep until 11:00 pm or midnight!
I’ve ordered your book but until it arrives I've been making
some really wonderful meals and snacks for my son just from the info on your
website… Since introducing the new diet, he's been basically a new, happier
little boy and the mood around the house is SO MUCH CALMER. -
[397] Stuttering related to preservatives and salicylates
(March 2006)
My 9 year old son started
stuttering when he was around 4 years old. He seemed to be sensitive to
preservatives especially 211 and I have steered clear of this preservative, but
a few weeks ago his stuttering came back in full force, around the same time I
had apple juice in the house. He is a big juice addict, and thinking back, has
always had juice, either straight or diluted. I have always watched out for the
preservatives in juice, and bread, but I now think he is intolerant to
salicylates as well. I have changed all of his foods to failsafe foods, and his
speech is now good. He has calmed down a bit as well.
[230] Loud voice, vocal tics, word and phrase repetition,
chicken and duck noises due to salicylates and additives (February 2003)
When Chris was born he was
a big, boofy boy. For the first six month of his life he was a placid, calm,
happy child. At six months, he changed to being very, very active, fidgety and
demanding. Looking back at that time, three things changed: he started long daycare, solids and formula.
I also remember very clearly that his face changed as big dark circles and
creases formed under his eyes. He was labelled ‘naughty, disruptive,
hyperactive and violent’ by daycare when he was only 10 months old. He was
walking at that stage and continued to escape from the childproof room, or to
snatch toys from non-mobile babies.
Since that time he has been
variously diagnosed by health professionals as having Tourette’s Syndrome, the
hyperactive type of ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and others. Whatever
the term, the symptoms are the same, including unmanageable behaviour, poor
impulse control, loud voice, vocal tics, word and phrase repetition and lack of
empathy.
Coupled with the behaviour
has also been a range of other medical problems including croup, asthma,
headaches and stomach aches, unexplained temperatures and eczema. Chris also
suffers from glue ear and for the last four years has had grommets inserted
every winter to enable him to hear clearly. (As I know now, these are all
indicative of food intolerance.)
Last year I took Chris to a
paediatrician, looking for a solution to his constant illness rather than his
behaviour. The doctor took one look at him he was making duck noises and
running in circles around the waiting room and diagnosed food intolerances.
We went home with a complex
list of foods to avoid. Although his health improved, his behaviour seemed to
become worse, as it always has in summer. Just before Christmas, I found the
low chemical elimination diet for food intolerance. This diet was stricter but
far more logical than the one we were using. It worked by identifying the
chemicals that people react to, then the foods that contain them.
Interestingly, the research showed that most people with food intolerance react
to the salicylates in fruit. I had been loading Chris up with cherries and
nectarines in term 4. No wonder his teacher was ready to send him to
I switched the family to
the low chemical diet during the holidays. Gradually, as we removed foods from
the diet and found acceptable replacements, Chris' behaviour improved. Living
with him became easier, there were less sibling fights, and when he did
misbehave it was easy to use normal parenting techniques to modify behaviour
- something that had never worked before.
By the end of the summer
holidays, I finally had a calm, reasonable, sensitive child, who was able to
play at other children’s places without causing mayhem, would look at people
when talking, and would allow other people to talk without interrupting.
Amazingly, Chris was keen to stick to the diet, having realised how good he
felt.
First day back at school
and I had lots of positive comments about how calm or grown-up Jon seemed. A
good start to the year. However, as I write this, I am back to having a child
who runs around making chicken noises, uses a loud voice, is prone to crying
and is violent and aggressive. What happened? He got to school and started to
cheat. See the rest of this story in the Factsheet Please
don't feed my child . – reader, Sydney.
More information
'Will they grow out of it?'
Spontaneous recovery and the therapists' dilemma, by Robert Sedgley, reporting
on a on a research presentation by Roberta Lees, a specialist in stammering at
Write for more information
about failsafe and our list of failsafe-friendly dietitians to fedup@ozemail.com.au
The information given is not intended as medical
advice. Always consult with your doctor for underlying illness. Before
beginning dietary investigation, consult a dietician with an interest in food
intolerance.
Update March 2006
