13 yr. Old Continuing Fluency Issues

by Susan Gately
(IL, USA)

My son is 13 and can talk for great lengths of time about Transformers or other personal interests without missing a beat, however at school, when he's unsure of himself, or talking with mom and dad or teacher about something that makes him nervous, or even reading aloud, he often loses fluency.

He takes breaths in the wrong places or skips words when reading aloud, thinking he read the words aloud, but didn't. Or his volume fades out, particularly at the end of a sentence.

He is very smart and very creative. I often think that so much is going on in his mind, that his tongue can't keep up, or at least his concentration on speaking properly can't keep up.

He's had speech therapy at school for several years. There have been 3 different therapists. He only really connected with one and made no progress with the others.

He's bored with therapy and now that he's older it's more difficult to miss class time for speech therapy. Are there any types of therapies we, as parents, can do with him at home that would be more engaging for him at 13?