http://www.LeoMagan.com/Stuttering
Our speech therapist Ms Magan highlights the top 4 myths about How to Stop Stuttering or Stammering.
Common Myths about Stuttering You Should Know:
There are 4 powerful secrets on how to eliminate Stuttering from your daily speech (removing the frustrations you have experienced... instead of feeling lost and not in control)
Myth 1: ” Take a deep breath”
Truth: Taking in a deep breath actually tenses up your muscles. If you want a quick tip, it's breathing out - and learning how to co-ordinate that with Speech that helps you to speak fluently without Stuttering.
Taking in a deep breath and having to hold it in actually makes your Speech muscles tense up - they have to, in order to hold the air in. This actually makes it more difficult to produce easy fluent Speech and the breathing pattern will interfere with your Speech
Myth 2: ” Just be Confident “
Truth:Contrary to what most people may think, there has not been any scientific evidence to show that anxiety causes Stuttering directly. Many people with a stutter find that they stutter even at times when they don't feel anxious. And anxiety is likely to be a result of Stuttering rather than a cause.
What research has established is that Stuttering is a problem of Speech motor control. In other words, Stuttering is an issue of how the brain controls and co-ordinates the physical movement of the Speech muscles, not a confidence issue.
Research shows that people who stutter speak in a manner which is fundamentally different from people who do not stutter.
The difference occurs not just when they stutter. Even when they are not Stuttering, their stutter-free Speech is different from the fluent Speech of people who do not stutter.
Myth 3: “Slow Down”
Truth: Well, actually this often does work. However, this strategy also illustrates one of the most frustrating facts about reducing Stuttering. You may be surprised that there are actually many conditions which reduce Stuttering to some extent, and it's likely you may already have stumbled on some of them.
If you just "slow down", wear a device to delay how you hear your own Speech (delayed auditory feedback), imitate an accent, or speak to a beat or rhythmically, say or read the word again (adaptation effect, as mentioned above), all these are actually likely to reduce your Stuttering. And practically nobody stutters while they sing.
Myth 4: “Learn this one Speech tip and you will never stutter again.”
Truth: Saying this is like saying 'Learn to hit the ball this one way and you can be the next tennis champion'. If a tennis coach promised you this, you would probably run a mile and never learn from him. Why? You know that a ball could come to you at different speeds, directions, angles, force etc, and you can't possibly just have a 'one-size-fit-all' response to all.
In the same way too, you may find that a 'Speech tip' you pick up randomly on the internet may work for some words, then fail you the next time - and you won't know why.
Here's the biggest secret to why your friends' advice or your own attempts to correct your Speech has not worked: your natural brain processing has been working against you.
Once you learnt how to talk at a young age, it is your natural brain processing that you start to do it all subconsciously. Your brain is designed such that you are not aware of the physical aspect of talking. You can walk and talk. You can drive and talk. It's like walking.
It is natural that you are not aware of how your brain controls your Speech muscles in order to produce all the hundreds or thousands of different words you say everyday. And that 'neuro-motor control' or 'Speech motor control' is exactly what all the research point to as the issue in Stuttering.
In order to get to the root cause of Stuttering, you need to address exactly how you produce Speech. You need to 'de-construct' exactly how you talk and learn the Speech 'technique' to talk fluently.
You have seen this in action. A footballer or a baseball player may look like s/he is 'kicking or hitting a ball' just like anyone else, but he actually kicks or hits in a very specific way that achieves a spectacular result, such as curving the ball in order to beat his opponent.
In the same way too, it is possible for you to learn to speak in a different way that actually makes it virtually impossible for you to stutter. I call this your Speech fluency 'technique', and see this as a 'tool' for you to apply in order to solve your problem of Stuttering.
