【英语时差8,16】讲话苦难

One of the most amazing phases in childhood development is when infants go from making baby sounds to actually saying words. Before you know it, your infant becomes a toddler and starts stringing words together into sentences.   Sometimes, however, such verbal dexterity¹ arrives with a troubling side of what pediatricians and speech therapists call dysfluency, or childhood stuttering. It's not uncommon² for kids between the ages of two and three to experience normal dysfluency, which means inserting lots of "uhs" and "ums" into their speech. Sometimes childhood stuttering can also involve the repetition of words or parts of words.

Scientists don't know what causes stuttering. Their best hypothesis is that it's caused by a combination of genetic³, and environmental factors. What we do know is that stuttering is not the result of bad parenting. But there are ways in which parents can help their child through this period of stuttering.

Since scientists suspect that stuttering may be exacerbated⁴ in part by stress, one way to help a child who is stuttering is to create a calm home atmosphere. So although it may seem helpful to tell your child to slow down or start over, doing so actually adds more stress by making them feel that they're doing something wrong. Instead, provide a helpful example by speaking slowly and calmly and maintaining eye contact. And don't be afraid to talk about the stuttering with your child.

In many cases, stuttering disappears after a short while. If it doesn't, and your child's stuttering seems to be getting worse, the best bet is to seek the help of a speech-language pathologist.  

1 dexterity   

n.(手的)灵巧，灵活

参考例句：

• You need manual dexterity to be good at video games.玩好电子游戏手要灵巧。
• I'm your inferior in manual dexterity.论手巧，我不如你。

2 uncommon   

adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的

参考例句：

• Such attitudes were not at all uncommon thirty years ago.这些看法在30年前很常见。
• Phil has uncommon intelligence.菲尔智力超群。

3 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

4 exacerbated   

v.使恶化，使加重( exacerbate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The symptoms may be exacerbated by certain drugs. 这些症状可能会因为某些药物而加重。
• The drugs they gave her only exacerbated the pain. 他们给她吃的药只是加重了她的痛楚。 来自《简明英汉词典》