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. You can find a supportive dietitian through the Dietitians
Association of
© Sue Dengate Update March 2006
