Happy New Year

Here's my New Year's resolution when it comes to my speech:

PAUSE.

Yes, that's it.

There are so many pressures in our lives to do things faster and faster. At work and at home, we have to do more with fewer resources, to squeeze the last ounce of energy out of our minds and bodies.

For those of us who stutter, this frantic pace not only exhausts us, it often robs us of a sense of self-worth. We ask ourselves if we have a right to speak when it takes us longer than average to say what we need to say. We try to hurry up, and as a result we stutter more, and then we try to hurry even faster, which makes the stuttering even more severe.

When I find myself caught in this vicious cycle, my goal this year is to stop. Even if it's just for two or three seconds, I will try to just pause.

Pauses are not hard to come by for people who stutter. We often open our mouths and nothing comes out. The whole world shrinks down to an awful, frozen silence. Time stops and we're paralyzed inside it, unable even to breathe.

Matt, our group co-leader, has a perfect image to capture what this feels like: as you're sitting right now, reading this, grip the edges of your chair and try to lift yourself up. Notice how tense you get, how you're holding your breath. Notice how the harder you try to pull up the chair, the worse it gets. Another vicious cycle.

What I mean by pausing, by breaking the cycle, is this: stop gripping the chair, stop trying to lift yourself up. Just sit. Take a breath. Be where you are.

This will not turn you into a person who no longer stutters. Sometimes, after this pause, this letting go, you won't stutter. But sometimes you will. Why do it, then? Because we all need--and deserve--a moment of peace and quiet, of appreciation and acceptance of exactly who we are, exactly where we are.

December 12 Meeting Update

We had a great casual get-together yesterday, with delicious snacks. We missed a lot of you! We know it's a busy time of year, and we hope that your preparations for a wonderful holiday season are in full (and smooth) swing.

One of our members was preparing for a presentation, so our conversation was centered on how to handle public speaking. Some excellent suggestions were:

1. Take time to pause and regroup if you need to. You'll probably need only a few seconds, even though it might feel like you're taking minutes. Don't worry about how long it takes. Just do what you need to do to get back on track.

2. Use body language (natural, not exaggerated) to communicate in order to take a little pressure off your speech.

3. Go at your own pace. This can be a big challenge in our fast-paced world. One member shared one way to go about it: tell the person you're speaking to, "I will go slowly because that's what works for me."

We also talked about the martial arts principle of taking control of a situation (a speaking situation or any other kind) and neutralizing conflict. When someone is angrily shouting at you, you can say, "I will listen without interrupting you to what you have to say. Then I'll tell you my side of the story, and ask you to please listen to me without interrupting me, and we'll see if we can resolve this."

I think this is a really beautiful idea. Sometimes, however, you can't always put it in practice. In that case, extricating yourself from the conflict without escalating it any further may be the best you can do.

At the November meeting the question came up why some people stutter when they speak but not when they sing. One member brought in an article from the University of Iowa Stuttering Project website, which offers some answers:

There are a few reasons why people don't stutter when they sing. One is called easy onset of speech, or easy voice, or smooth speech. This describes the way you sing. Think about it; you generally use a smoother and easier voice when you're singing versus when you're speaking. Speech therapists actually use the easy onset strategy when helping people who stutter.

Another reason...is because words are more prolonged (and less apt to be stumbled over) when they're sung rather than spoken. Music is an activity in which you use the right side of the brain (language uses the left), so when you sing music, you're no longer using your left brain (and probably no longer stuttering).

Happy Holidays everyone, and we hope to see you all in the New Year!

Article: "People Who Stutter Know Exactly What They Want to Say"

I'd like to share an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, sent to me by a member of our group.

'People Who Stutter Know Exactly What They Want to say'

By Alexandra Rice

A banker turned speech pathologist, Eric Jackson has stuttered for as long as he can remember. Now an adjunct professor at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus, he teaches a course on the nature and development of stuttering and supervises graduate students at the college's speech and hearing clinic.

Q. What got you interested in research on stuttering?

A. As a person who stutters it was really hard growing up, having this inability to speak and get my message across. About five or six years ago, I had an amazing experience in a therapy program. I started thinking about stuttering and communicating a lot differently, and I wanted to be a part of that process for other people who stutter.

Q. How has having a stutter influenced or shaped your career?

A. It gave me a new career. I used to work in banking, and up until that therapy experience, I never knew I could help other people who stutter. And just being a person who stutters, it gives me intimate insight into the impact a disorder like this can have on people's lives.

Q.What do you think about the New Jersey student who was reportedly asked by his professor to stop talking in class because of his stutter?

A. Well, I wasn't there, but if the student was told that he shouldn't speak in class because of his stuttering, obviously I think there's something wrong with that. I think it's great the student was so willing to contribute during the class and to ask questions even though he has a difficult time doing so. I saw some reports saying that it wasn't the stuttering that was the reason this person was asked to stop talking, but that he was taking up too much time asking questions in class. If that's true, then there should've been a conversation between the teacher and the student about him taking away from other students' class time-not about him stuttering.

Q. What are some of the latest therapies for people who stutter?

A. We recently ran an intensive therapy program over the weekend for children who stutter here at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus. The program focuses on 8- to 12-year-old kids who stutter, and at least one parent participates in the weekend because parental involvement is a crucial part of the therapy. I can't tell you how helpful it is for kids who stutter to know that other kids are going through very similar things.

Q. What tips can you offer professors for working with students who stutter?

A. There are a couple of standard rules, like being patient and listening to what is said and not how it's said; not interrupting and not finishing words or sentences of people who stutter. People who stutter know exactly what they want to say, it's just not coming out. So when a person knows what they want to say and for some reason their speech system isn't allowing them to say it, that's when the anxiety, fear, and nervousness come out. For professors who are comfortable, they should take the student aside and ask how they can be helpful when the student is raising his or her hand in class. They should do this privately. I remember when I was in fifth grade, my teacher said in front of my whole class, "Oh, Eric, I think it would be really helpful to take a deep breath before you speak." That's just not the best wayto go about providing a suggestion. So, if somebody's speech is not typical, just give that person a couple extra seconds to talk. For people who stutter, sometimes they stutter and sometimes they don't. If those who don't stutter understand that, it can be really helpful.

Welcome!

Hello everyone! Thank you for visiting our blog. Whether you are a new or long-time member, whether you've attended our meetings often or are just thinking about it, this is a great place to get and stay in touch with one another and to support one another in our journey towards greater fluency and confidence in our communication skills.

We hope you'll use this website to ask questions, share challenges as well as successes you've had with your speech, make suggestions for activities during meetings (topics for discussion, speaking exercises), and give us feedback about the meetings: what you liked and didn't like, what was helpful and what wasn't.

You can receive updates of our blog if you sign up to follow us by e-mail, or through your Google, Yahoo or Twitter account. We hope you join us, both here and at one of our meetings, and become part of our community. Be well, and remember: IF YOU STUTTER YOU ARE NOT ALONE.