Is stammering/stuttering a disease or a habit?

Stammering is not a disease, only a bad habit, developed mainly due to some psychological inadequacies in the young child’s immediate environment. There is no physical defect or impairment in the speech mechanism. If one can talk without stuttering when he is alone or when not being heard or observed by others. If one can sing without any sign of faltering, it would be a fair assumption that he would be having no physical or organic defect causing the trouble. Actually all stutterers have periods of fluency.

If science is so advanced then why is there no medicine to cure stuttering?

Since there is nothing physically wrong with the speech mechanism, all the so called medicines are ‘placebos’, which means that they have no direct bearing on the speech problem, but the stammerer ‘thinks’ that they work. Such medicines do not break the abnormal speaking habit. In fact, it can corrode the person’s faith in an ultimate recovery.

What should be done to overcome stuttering?

Continued Speech therapy clubbed with psycho therapy, backed by group therapy and followed up by maintenance therapy may be the only answer towards long term fluency.

Speech therapy is to work on the speech organs and exercising the muscles in order to establish the neuro muscular co-ordination. Stabilizing a rate of speech, which is acceptable in interaction and extempore. Speech is the main aspect in speech therapy. It is in fact probably impossible to stutter in any way at all without excessive muscular tension in some form or the other.

Most stutterers begin in childhood. If they are not cleared up they can grow worse. This does not mean that adult stutterers cannot be cured. Age is no bar in breaking the disfluent speech. A valuable precondition for successful therapy is the deep inner conviction of the stutterer in the creditability of his disorder combined with a fighting spirit and a readiness to undergo therapy.

To attain apparent fluency it does not take much time, maybe 2 months or so if regular therapy is undertaken. To maintain the fluent stage may vary from person to person depending upon the psychological pressure and the ability to take help from the environment for working on specific speech targets. If the stutterer is going to change radically his accustomed manner of stuttering, he must work persistently and diligently over a long period of time. The adult stutterer enters therapy. The first thing that he must understand is that stuttering as it is now was acquired over a period of time and that change is a Process which will be gradual and not sudden. I state confidently that continued speech therapy can bring a radical change in the person.

Over the years I have observed that the stutterer feels difficulty in introducing himself. The name itself depicts the personality of a person. Over the years of stuttering, the stutterer starts leading a dual personality. He wants to hide the stuttering from people and when asked to introduce himself, there is a personality conflict leading to a block. “You will remain a stutterer as long as you pretend not to be one”.

Therapy must be practiced full time to be highly successful. You must feel that you are on the right track and you must be committed to putting the program into practice. Plan your work well and then work your plan harder you have ever worked before. Success will follow.

I have not observed any negative effects of speech therapy. I have had cases where students have not responded as fast as one would like them to, but in every case, there has been some positive effect.

Many children between the ages of 2 and 4 years go through a stage when they seem to stutter. This disfluent speech is very disturbing to parents. Most children will become fluent as they get older and their language skills improve. Disfluent speech is higher in the pre school years when the child is learning to express new and abstract concepts.

The following suggestions may help you to know how to respond to your child’s disfluent speech.

1. Contact a speech-language-pathologist about your child’s speech especially if your child seems aware of the disfluency, or if signs of tension and frustration accompany the disfluencies.

2. Listen closely when your child talks. Pay attention to what your child says rather than the way it it said.

3. Use a slow rate in your own speech and pause frequently. A slow speaking rate provides a good model for your child. It also gives your child more time to understand what you are saying and formulate thoughts.

4. Provide opportunities for your child to talk to you without distractions or competition from other family members.

5. Reduce pressure to communicate. For example, limit the number of questions you ask your child since questions demand that your child make an immediate response.

6. Give your child enough time to talk. Limit time pressure; e.g. give your child time to answer a question before asking another one.

7. Observe situations that increase or decrease fluent behavior. Increase the times when your child tends to be more fluent.

8. Recognize that certain language factors may have an effect on fluency. For example, disfulency may increase if topic is unfamiliar difficult to understand, or refers to something in the past. Disfluency may also be greater when complex language is use.

9. Recognize that certain environmental factors may have a negative effect on fluency: competition to speak, excitement, arguing, fatigue, new situations and unfamiliar listeners.

10. Repeat or rephrase what your child says to verify that you have understood it.

1. Do not tell your child to speak differently. Don’t say “Relax”, “Slow down”, “Take Your Time”, or “Think Before You Talk”

2. Do not call attention to your child’s speech.

3. Do not place your child in situations where his/her speech would be on display.

4. Do not look distressed when your child is disfluent.

5. Do not call your child a stutterer.

6. Do not interrupt your child.

7. Do not criticize or correct your child’s speech.

8. Do not complete your child’s sentences.

However, you may not want to just wait and see whether your child would outgrow a disfluent speech pattern. Early intervention for treatment of stuttering is generally more effective than waiting until a child is in school. Are you concerned about your child’s fluency? An evaluation by a speech-language-pathologist is recommended. A speech-language-pathologist will be able to tell whether the child’s hesitations and sound or word repitition are similar to those of other children in the same age group.