The Health Doctors Daily Blog

The astonishing development in specialised stuttering therapies has been well documented within the media and even Joe Biden, the US vice presidential candidate, has managed to join the debate by stating that he has also managed to overcome a stutter. So what about children who have a stutter, is this stammering therapy of benefit to them as well?

If you ask this question to 100 men who are in their 40s and have this form of speech impediment

Which period of your life has been the most difficult due to your speech impediment? Childhood or adulthood etc?

From the many stutterer’s that I have met since I have been running The How To Stop Stuttering Centre in the UK – I would say that a large percentage of them would say that their childhood was the worst period. For people who stutter there can be many troublesome times as they mature through childhood.

Do kids gain from therapy for stuttering? Well all I can say is that I would have loved somebody to offer me the chance to achieve fluency when I was fourteen years of age, unfortunately this type of specialised stuttering help treatment was not available back then.

To achieve fluency takes a lot of hard work and dedication; that goes without saying. Certain kids are not mature enough or have the conviction to work to the required levels. With their parents help and guidance the therapy will however be of great benefit even to these people as it will at least give them options and make them aware of what they should be doing to speak fluently.

The majority of children would walk to the other side of the world in order to achieve fluency and therefore are more than happy to work very hard towards eradicating the stutter. Specialised stuttering therapy can quite simply change these types of children’s lives.

I had a stutter from the age of four and during the period when I had the speech impediment, I had a fear of certain words beginning with certain letters. The words beginning with the letter b were without doubt the most difficult to say. I also had a fear saying words which began with d, v, g, and p. The way I would cope with these words was by either avoiding them or by findng an alternative word to say. For whatever this reason this was far from easy and I seemed to have these difficult words permanently in my thoughts. I had a lifetime goal which was to attain total fluency; I often dreamt of the day when I would be able to say any word regardless of what letter it began with.

Many different situations would be affected by the stutter, for example I found job interviews very stressful as I would stutter more when I was under pressure.

At the aged of 16 I began to drink alcohol and a short while later I became drunk for the very first time. The results were quite amazing as I could now talk really well. My overall self-confidence and self-esteem had been given a huge boost – even though it was without doubt only a temporary one. The fear of stuttering disappeared and the words began to flow.

I was hoping that the new found stutter-free speech would continue in the morning – this was not to be the case. I felt rather unwell and some what sleepy and the stutter was to return with full force. The previous nights experience had though, for the first time given me a belief that one day I could possibly eradicate my stutter.

There are many forms of stuttering treatment out there including tradional speech therapy, group speech courses, one to one speech courses, and even hypnotherapy. I personally believe that the way to go is one to one speech courses as every person who has a stutter is an individual and has an individual stutter.

There is also self help stuttering therapies available via stuttering therapy ebooks and dvds.

Remember to work hard and to put in the required practice. The techniques do work however they are not some form of magic pill.

I have always struggled to live a stress-free life. I worry about almost every aspect of life and living this way has caused me a lot of problems including various bouts of ill health from time to time. I needed to find a way of coping with and reducing the amount of stress in my life and in this article I write about how I have managed to achieve this.

So what do I stress about? Well I suppose it is anything and everything. Women and my relationships with them; my financial position – having a lack of money and worrying about how I am going to be able to pay the bills etc. I also have anxiety over my career and my personal friendships. For whatever reason I also used to worry about what other people thought of me.

I am the kind of person who is classed as a thinker. I basically think far too much about personal matters. This thinking is very much in a negative manner and is a cycle which I have found hard to break.

About a year ago I was invited to appear on a national radio show to talk about my occupation which is providing an affordable DVD duplication service and offering Mobile Phone Voucher Codes, and also strangely enough helping an organisation to do with training for foster carers. I was due to talk live on this radio program at around 2pm. All morning as was my way of course, I was thinking and worrying about how I would come across to other people. I was afraid that I would make a fool of myself and would sound like a bit of an idiot. I also, for whatever reason, started to stress about whether I would be able to remember, under the amount of pressure that I was likely be under, the important aspects of my occupation which people would be interested in.

I was getting myself into a bit of a state and even thought about phoning up to cancel the interview. I then called up a good friend of mine who has always provided me with sound advice. I explained about the radio show and about my fears. He advised me to think in a much more positive way about the interview and to start some deep breathing exercises. It would, he continued, be a chance to promote my own services and therefore was something to be grateful for.

He advised me that what I needed to do was to keep myself busy. If I am very busy, I would not have any time to think in my usual negative way. He stated that he believed that I needed to find things that would occupy my mind. He thought that I was spending the majority of the time stressing about this and that. If however I had a much busier life then I would not have so much time to think in this manner.

This is something I had realised a few years before but had in truth not acted on. I thought about what my friend had said and then decided to get stuck into some much needed gardening. I am happy to let you know that the radio interview went fine.

I found life with a stutter extremely frustrating as at times I could speak very well. I could talk to my partner without too many problems however could hardly speak a word when chatting to her family.

I was at a loss to comprehend why I could speak free from this speech impediment to person A but that I could not talk fluently to person B. I did attended various forms of stammering treatments but to no avail.

I read many books about speech imediments, achieving fluency and about how to stop stammering, about a potential stammering cure and spoke to many speech therapists. From what I read and from what I was told, I was made to believe that I was unable to live a stuttering-free life as it suggested you are unable to eradicate a stutter. This was not really the form of stammering advice that I was looking for; I wanted specialised therapy etc.

I was not exactly impressed with the negativity – I am a person who believes in the power of positive thinking.

I then was fortunate enough to watch Bruce Willis being interviewed on the television. He stated that he had had a stutter which had started when he was a young boy, however he had managed to achieve fluency when he was a late teenager. This was a huge inspiration to me and I then decided that I would attempt to overcome my own speech impediment.

I was eventually able to eradicate the stutter. It was far from easy and I was assisted in a big way by a 70 minute self-help stuttering therapy DVD that I bought from The How To Stop Stuttering Centre. I now have a much more fulfilling life and I also have a successful career selling front doors.  

Stuttering can be overcome with hard work and a lot of desire; if I can do it then so could you.