Child repeats their own phrases

August 15, 2023 6:03 PM

My 4yo has a common language pattern where she repeats her own phrase, almost like she started off strong knowing what she wants to say but can’t quite spit it out. Something like this: “Hey mom! I think I want to… I think I want to … I think I want to”

I’m left with the impression she isn’t certain she has my full attention, so repeats herself until I pause and make eye contact and listen. So then I do that. And then she’ll either A) still not be able to spit it out, and start crying b) I give her a word prompt and suggestion, which results in her getting mad that she didn’t say it herself and start crying (regardless of whether my suggestion was what she intended, or not) or c) finally able to spit it out.

This happens a few times a day. Even if she has my attention from the get go, albeit much less often in that case. Will repeat 3-5 times at least until tears. It reminds me of a stutter this one guy I worked with had, he’d repeat a couple words till he can get it out. I’m really left with the impression that she non-verbally knows what she wants to say and just can’t get the word or idea out. She’s quite articulate for her age but at times will take the round about way to express herself, using uncommon phrasing but if you listen her idea is clear. Until recently she was making pronoun mistakes (“does she has her book?”) but haven’t heard that for months now. She’s otherwise quite neuro typical. Her brother is a touch neuro divergent (sensory / anxious) but no autism.

Is this anything to follow up with or be concerned about? Thanks mefites!!

posted by St. Peepsburg to Health & Fitness (21 answers total)

Response by poster: (Possessive pronoun mistakes I mean; sorry grammar friends! Like “does her has her book?”)
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:05 PM on August 15, 2023

Best answer: My kid did something very similar, but would slowly add on a new word each time. "I think...I think I...I think I want... I think I want to...." etc. They eventually grew out of it. No advice here other than the be patient and kind, as it can be frustrating to be the listener, trying to determine what they are trying to tell you.
posted by skwm at 6:11 PM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: My kid does this sometimes and I try to wait for her to get the word she wants. But it doesn't happen more than a few times a day and not usually more than three four five repeats. I think she's thinking faster than her mouth is able to catch up to and needs to find the words or rephrase to what she's trying to say.

If the tears are happening even if you're just waiting, you might try teaching some slow dish/ calm down techniques, like blowing up a balloon (your/ her hands expanding like a balloon to a slow breath out) or blowing a flower (closed fist slowly opening one finger/ petal at a time). It takes time for them to learn these outside of these moments and then use then, but I've had some luck using these for anger and high emotions.
posted by carrioncomfort at 6:20 PM on August 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Have you talked to your pediatrician? Absent other concerns, I don't think I'd bring a child in for this, but it's reasonable to raise in a well-child visit or via inbox message in your patient portal.
posted by eirias at 6:21 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I'm so sorry this is happening. My child has gone through various speech articulation issues, including a stutter. If this keeps up, I'd suggest you get a consult with a speech language pathologist. It sounds like your daughter is struggling and unhappy, and a good SLP could help her work through it.

Oh, and as a parent of a stutterer, please please please delete the phrase "spit it out" from your vocabulary. Don't ever say it, try not to think it. It is a term of abuse.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:25 PM on August 15, 2023 [11 favorites]

I can't speak to the repetition question, but the pronoun confusion is absolutely normal.

My granddaughter used to say " 'Suzy' doesn't like that," meaning herself. And, adorably, "Suzy doesn't know what Suzy has."
posted by SLC Mom at 6:25 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Definitely check with her pediatrician. My second kid had a pretty severe stutter/stammer for about a month or two when they were four? three? not sure of the actual age. At the advice of our pediatrician (and every online resource I found) we were patient with them, let them finish their sentences, and otherwise didn't make a big deal out of it. (I did ask them once if they were having trouble getting their words out and they sighed and said "yeah.") The stutter disappeared as soon as it began; this may or may not happen for your child but know that it does sometimes happen.
posted by sencha at 6:35 PM on August 15, 2023

Best answer: By the way, I don’t think it’s related to your level of attention (and I wonder if “full attention” might amp up the pressure.) I think it’s just that right now her verbal processing is a little slower than her mental processing. I might encourage her to take a pause, think about what she wants to say before starting again when she’s ready (this might involve a hand sign of some kind, like a quiet coyote?). Maybe model an unhurried pause yourself and encourage other family members not to talk over her. I’d try to relax a lot about it in the moment, including when she bursts into tears. You can talk with your pediatrician just so you have a record of it if it doesn’t improve in 6 months but it seems pretty normal to me, a non expert mom of a 7yo.
posted by vunder at 6:53 PM on August 15, 2023

Two of my three kids stutter or used to stutter like this. It started when they were 4 or 5, so my youngest is not out of the woods yet. It happens especially when they're excited or nervous.

My oldest has largely gotten past it - she figured out on her own that she needed to collect her thoughts before she spoke. Instead you often get "mommy?" followed by a very long pause while she figures out the plan for her entire utterance before she says what she wanted to say. At this point she's ten and I've made my peace with the idea that this is just how she talks.

I try not to try to "read their minds" and complete the sentence for them, though sometimes I probably do. They've got to be able to get past the pause, and the only way to do that is practice. In our house, because all our kids have some manner of speech impediment, we have just got used to leaving a lot of space for each other to utter our thoughts and I do think it's helped the kids. I never heard of anyone losing a stutter by having someone give them a lot of crap about it or try to finish their sentence for them.
posted by potrzebie at 6:54 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You mean like this? It's pretty common.
posted by Toddles at 6:58 PM on August 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I’m left with the impression she isn’t certain she has my full attention

I don't have any thing to say on the developmental side of things (though in broad strokes this does seem similar to what I've seen by kids that age), but I'm wondering if she's crying because when she does have your full attention, well now the stakes are higher and she really has to get it out! If you reassure her you're listening to her while also not giving her your full attention it may lower the stakes and let her get it out on her own time.
posted by wemayfreeze at 7:06 PM on August 15, 2023 [5 favorites]

When she's getting upset, you could tell her that you know it's so! so! frustrating!! when you can't get your thoughts out, but you're here and will happily wait to hear what she'd like to say, so it's okay if she wants to take a second to practice saying it in her head first
(or whatever phrasing & delivery will tell her that you empathize, there's no rush, she has your attention, she can take time to gather her thoughts)

My mom said something similar to me when I was a kid but perhaps less gently!

With my son, who does the same thing but is older, sometimes I'll relieve him of the first part of the sentence or thought by taking it and making it a question. I might also sort of summarize the broader context if I know it. Basically just rephrasing what he's said so far.

I definitely try not to put words in his mouth or make suggestions. Ideally I want to only give the impression that I am listening and am happy to wait to hear what he's going to say.. it can be very hard sometimes!

With a 4 year old, you might be able to turn it into a guessing game sometimes. If your kid enjoys this sort of thing, once in a while you might interrupt the repetition and very excitedly ask if you can guess. Maybe she could tell you if your guesses are getting warmer or colder, and then you can throw in some hilariously silly guesses and ask for hints.

I wouldn't be terribly concerned, but it's something I'd monitor and mention at a checkup.
posted by Baethan at 7:19 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh, this sounds familiar. My kiddo was put into speech therapy starting in kindergarten because the teacher couldn't understand her. (Of course, I could, so I was surprised!) It was for pronunciation. But within about 3 years, she developed a dysfluency that went like this, "I went with my friends...-rends to swing...-wing on the swingset." "Are we going to the movie...-ovie?" With little pauses, you see.

I asked her speech therapist to look out for it. Ultimately she outgrew it, but that might have been helped along by the fact that she was in speech therapy for other reasons.

Anyway, maybe worth getting your daughter checked out if it bothers her. Sounds like she does find it frustrating.
posted by Knowyournuts at 7:29 PM on August 15, 2023

Simple sign language can really help out here. Having signs for a few common things will help with getting it out when the mouth isn’t catching up. It won’t impact verbal speech acquisition negatively, and has been shown to have positive effects.
posted by Bottlecap at 7:46 PM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I think this is a stammer, and variations of it run in my family.

A couple of us learned to talk absurdly fast as small kids, as our thoughts went far faster than normal articulation. If we tried to talk at an ordinary speed we lost track of what we were going to say or got frustrated. Believe it or not, I think stammers of this sort usually happen when the brain is too fast for the mouth. She may have started doing this because they are telling her at school to talk more slowly.

It might be something that will pass in a few days after she gets enough sleep, or recovers from a growth spurt or a stressful situation. But it also may not, in which case a speech pathologist can help her with it.

The thing that you can do without getting a speech pathologist in, or until you can get one lined up, is to schedule regular one on one time with her, where you get her to do a lot of talking. The way to fix most speech problems is for her to practice talking. Get her to talk about things that she finds interesting to reduce the stress and tension. You want her to be interested enough that she is glad to chatter about it, rather than having her bored or put on the spot. Anxiety often triggers stammering, so speech practice should be when she gets to monologue at you, with you asking her leading questions to keep her going.

You can also try getting her to experiment with talking faster, or practicing getting your attention before she begins her speech. Eg. "Mom, I want to say something." *waits until you turn around and look at there expectantly.

Sometimes when a kid repeats phrases it means they have the kind of a brain that will be very good at words, especially poetry. It's called echolalia. Often people who have echolalia become really good at writing poetry, or lyrics, or using the kind of rhetorical devices that have internal rhythms. While they are still developing though, it can sound like they are stuck, not that they are on the path to developing a greater fluency with words than is average.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:55 PM on August 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

One of my brothers did this as we were growing up, and to my great regret I participated in the family trend of interrupting him, prodding him to continue, etc. Decades later, he made it clear what sort of a hostile environment that created for him. Now that I have my own family, one of my children does this, and I refuse to rush them. When they start an utterance, I just wait with gentle patience for whatever words come, whenever they come. Internally, having ADHD means I might have a pulsing impatience urging the situation to move forward, but that's something that I try to just notice and let go of.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:39 PM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think it’s just that right now her verbal processing is a little slower than her mental processing

Agreed, which I think is common. At least, my now-6yo did it when she was 4, and my turning-4-next-week is starting to do it. My oldest had some really trouble, to the point where we were going to get her checked for stuttering, until it just kinda stopped. She still does it sometimes, but not nearly as often. My impression is that 4 is when you really start to have complex thoughts, and it takes a minute to work your way through expressing them.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:47 AM on August 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

I had two boys who did this exact thing at this age. Both outgrew it without intervention. I would be patient, avoid prompting or calling attention to it, and check in with the doc at the next check-up of it continues not that you shouldn't follow up, but. I believe this is super common at this age.
posted by Ausamor at 5:13 AM on August 16, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks everyone for the thoughtful replies. Oh my gosh we definitely don’t tell her to spit it out! I wrote that because I typed my question out on my phone when I had a spare minute so reached for the easy phrase. If anything I feel a lot of love and cherishing when this happens and I really want to know what she has to say because it clearly feels important! Oh and she definitely adds a word every repeat too, and it happens when she’s excited or nervous. This is all good feedback to give some calm down strategies and spend more relaxed time where she can talk lots and reassure her that she has lots of time to express herself. Thank you !!
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:45 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

This is called echolilia. My son did it too and while it can be unnerving, it definitely falls in the range of normal. One theory is that growing brains are too fast for the body to express all these thoughts clearly. Agree with a note to the pediatrician. If they are still doing it when they go to school, check with the speech pathologist for your system. My son had 6-8 sessions in first grade where she taught him some “tricks” to make him aware and slow his thoughts down and he had stopped by the end of the school year.
posted by pearlybob at 3:14 AM on August 17, 2023

It might also help to share some of what you learned here to let her know that this is very normal and it often happens when people have brains that are very full of thoughts (which is a wonderful thing) and it just takes practice for the words learn how to keep up with the thoughts.
posted by metahawk at 7:03 PM on August 17, 2023