Stuttering Techniques
What are the major stuttering techniques? How do they work? Which one is the best for you? Let's try to bring a little bit of clarity into that.
I remember going to a museum one day, and I don't remember exactly what the museum was about, but I remember the guide, the girl who was telling us about the museum. And she often began a sentence with "and." ”And starting from that time - blah, blah, blah… And here you can see - blank.”
Most of the time, it was okay, but sometimes it was weird, and at some point, I realized that she was using a stuttering technique to begin a sentence in a comfortable way.
There are many techniques of that kind; like replacing words, using devices and so on. We're not talking about them today because they help you get through speech impediments, but they're not aiming at really changing your speaking in principle. And what we want to have at the end of the day is freedom from stuttering, 100% confidence that you don't stutter.
If you're trying to get free from stuttering, you might be looking for some "secret." And yes, each method or therapy usually has some core element, but there are so many "secrets" out there, it's easy to get lost. So I want to distill all those techniques into five categories.
#1 Prolongation
These are the techniques which target your speech impediments directly, the very structure of your speech. This is the most common technique actually. Most therapies and methods are using prolongation in some form or another.
There are different types of prolongation; one is more like robotic prolongation when you make all the sounds monotonous. I like more prolongation when you make the first vowel sound in a phrase stronger and deeper launching the whole piece that you're saying, the whole word or phrase.
Links:
Relaxation for stuttering
Megan Washington's TEDx talk
What caught my attention in that TEDx talk are two things. First, Megan Washington uses that technique from time to time and obliviously this is not enough for building a new automated speaking pattern. Second, she says "that's not me" and that “me” is a huge question. It brings us to stuttering technique category number two.
#2 Mindset
We don't stutter or we're much more fluent in certain situations. And some people say, "I don't stutter most of the time, I stutter only in these particular settings." So the question many people have is maybe there's just some psychological shift that I need to make to be fluent.
Links:
#1 advice for stuttering
Tony Robbins cures a person who stutters
In this video, Tony Robbins cures a man who stutters and he does that on a very psychological level. And he does that tremendously quickly.
Now, I don't believe that it can happen, I mean I don't believe that it can last long term. I don’t believe in hypnosis and such other things as a sustainable long-term technique, but again as you may notice I say "I don't believe." It's all about my belief.
While I'm not a great believer in that technique as the sole thing that can change everything, we must admit that it's a huge piece of stuttering - the psychological thing. Stuttering is not only the physical speed impediments, by far. A huge part of it is our belief and our perception of ourselves as people who stutter.
#3 Surrounding physical aspects
Some techniques are about the surrounding aspects of our speaking like relaxation, breathing, using lower voice, eye contact and some others. And the central one is usually the breathing thing because speaking is breathing out words. It's actually the air going out with the words.
So, what can we do with our breathing? While we speak using lower voice, using belly breathing and we spend much less air so as a result we have more air to say our phrase and it's becoming easier.
Stuttering is associated with our speaking from the larynx in a very shallow way. We can say that stuttering causes that shallow speaking and vice versa that shallow speaking becomes one of the causes of our stuttering.
Links:
Breathing exercises for stuttering
McGuire Programme video
#4 Expression practice
Initially, I wanted to talk about speaking practice, and it's great to have speaking practice; to read out loud, to speak out loud. Some people say it's great to hold a pencil or pen in the mouth while speaking.
It's all awesome but it's not quite grabbing the point, it's not only about speaking box or speaking mechanism.
In the music video (see the link below), Stormzy is not just singing; he's living it out. His whole body is singing, is saying that, right? Not just the speaking box.
And you might say that this is a performance thing.
Not really. When you're relaxed, when you're enjoying speaking, your entire body is speaking, and the speaking box just follows.
And here we're coming back to that concept of "Me." Quite often when I speak to somebody I feel that I'm in a certain state, I'm more stiff and tense and like feeling myself in a box. My mouth is stiff, and I'm asking myself - why?
Because I have a perception of what is "normal."
If I articulate, if I enunciate, if I move my body that is weird. That is something strange; people would be like, what is that? And that is all going in my mind, that is the perception of what that normal "Me" should be.
Links:
Singing as a speaking exercise for stuttering
Ed Sheeran - 'Shape Of You (Remix)' Ft. Stormzy
You wouldn't probably say that Ed Sheeran or Emily Blunt stopped being authentic selves once they dived into that performance and acting thing, once they got out of that box of normal "Me."
Once we get out, we find another "Me" which is unknown, unexpected, undiscovered but that is also us. It's just bigger than that perception of "normal" us as we try to think of ourselves. So there are many moving pieces, there's a lot of room for transformation here.
#5 Using hand
Hand stuttering technique is the technique that I use myself. It's about extracting sounds with your hand.
The training speech initially is a bit slower than our usual pace (it means that prolongation is used here as well), but I don't need to use my hand anymore once I've built my new automated speaking pattern. Once you have your confidence that you don't stutter, you don't need it. But you know that you can come back to the technique at any time. And you don't want to be ashamed of it. You want to be able to use it openly, embracing your difference. Only this way you truly give yourself permission to speak on your terms.
Everyone has disfluencies and glitches in their speech, including the best speakers. That's something that we would be very concerned with. But once you have total confidence that you can speak on your terms and you don't have to stutter, these glitches and disfluencies just don't matter.
Links:
Free From Stutter Method
Stuttering: fix this!
On the one hand, stuttering is an iceberg with several important pieces or parts, so a good therapy should combine several techniques affecting these several parts or pieces (our speech impediments on a very physical level, articulation, relaxation, breathing, eye contact, and all the psychological stuff). So it all should be involved but, on the other hand, we are very different, and since a huge part of stuttering goes with its roots into our personality it's a great idea to try and test various techniques and see what's working best for you.
If you want to go deeper into stuttering (stammering) techniques, I've done even more research on that and you can find it at the link below.
If you are a person who stutters,
and you're not quite satisfied with how you feel at the moment of speaking interaction
I invite you to my free training where I share my view on getting free from stuttering.
And for more interaction,
join the Free From Stutter Facebook group.
Please, don't stay isolated! It's crucial to feel you’re part of the community!
If you have thoughts or observations, anything that comes to your mind - let me know in the comments!
Thank you so much! See you soon!
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