A four-year-old boy who, suddenly, ten days ago, presented with a speech disturbance consisting of repetition of syllables and prolongation of sounds. He has no other neurological symptoms. The parents relate it to a head injury suffered the day before the onset of the symptoms. Previously, his language was slow and considered normal for his age. He showed adequate acquisition of language skills and other neurodevelopmental milestones up to the present.
On examination, the patient showed coherent speech with repetition of phonemes in sentences and prolonged pauses between phrases. Pronunciation is correct but the patient has to make an effort to control it. He organises sentences of three or four words without syntactic problems. He shows adequate oral comprehension. The rest of the neurological examination was normal.
Given these data, a diagnosis of developmental stuttering is made and assessment by a speech therapist is recommended.