stuttering in reverse

My son is 2 ½ and has a fairly large vocabulary and good, clear enunciation. He is very intelligent and says new words and phrases almost every day and remembers them. His communication and comprehension skills are well developed.

However, I have become concerned in the last 2 weeks. He has begun to stutter the last syllables or sounds of the words he says. For example, the other day he got a DVD and handed it to me and said, “I want to watch-ch-ch this movie-vie.” Or he’ll say, “I want to give the dogs-gs a treat.”

I have a younger half-sister who is 12 years old, and she had the exact same speech problem develop when she was 6 years old in the midst of our mom’s and her father’s (my step-dad) divorce. She struggled with the problem until she was 11 years old. She could hardly say a single word without stuttering the last syllable or sound a few times.

I’m wondering, first of all, if this is a weird stress-related impediment, because my son’s father and I were living together until last month. I kicked him out of my house because he was emotionally/verbally abusive to me, often in front of our son. We almost never got along, and since kicking him out, my son has been wondering where his daddy is (he has not seen our son in 2 weeks, and has only briefly spoken to him on the phone twice).

Secondly, has anyone else experienced this kind of speech impediment? My sister outgrew it after 5 years, but I don’t want to see my son go through the same thing for so many years (especially considering my ex was one of the people who gave my sister a hard time for her speech impediment).

[3rdchild]

Why don't you call the pediatrician and let them know what's going on?  Maybe they would suggest a speech evaluation for your son or basically tell you what to do.  They would know what's "normal" for a very young child.  Unless you have a pyschologist you could ask them if this speech problem could be related from stress and what should you do about it.  One more thing....if you don't get a straight answer or something you are happy with you could probably contact a speech therapist and get their advice.
Just a few thoughts,
Good Luck