Stuttering Treatment

stuttering child
The first Key to Change: Acceptance

The first step to changing your current is acceptance. Acceptance means that you understand and acknowledge reality accurately and consciously. Usually, this is the most difficult part and is often the root cause of the problem. About 40% of the hesitation can be solved by accepting that the hesitation can come in, since most of it comes from the fear or non-acceptance of this possibility.

Once you accept your current situation, you stop going through the circles of why, how and what - and start working on creating positive action to get over the problem, and/or make the best of it. This is the first, and maybe, the only common step among all stutterers.

You can see it in exercises as well. The first stage of training is to understand where you are right now - how many weights can you lift, how far you can run, current speed and milestones. Only then does the next stage start …

Until you figure out where you stand right now, you cannot adopt a sensible therapy program.

I would say that meeting a qualified speech therapist is the first step in this process. A qualifies therapist knows the range of speech issues, and you may have a mild one, easily eliminated, or a combination - which might need a proper program. Either ways, thats the best way to know where you are right now.

But how can you do it in the comfort of your home. There is one way - make a list of all situations in which you face an issue and rank them in the order of decreasing difficulty and then again in order of importance.

eg
How is your speech on the phone ?
Do you have a problem saying your name? If yes, when / in which situations ?
How are you in talking with strangers ?
How are you in talking with authority - police, doctors, etc.?
How are you with family and loved ones?
How are you in your job ?
etc….

Once you know your level of comfort in each of the areas that are important for you, you can then improve in that area. You would know which areas are you strong in, which areas are a challenge and which are virtually impossible.

I would suggest - start with your weakest area, assess your present standard, accept it as a starting point and design the improvement program accordingly.Start out with some easy exercises you know you can do, and gradually progress to greater challenges.

Move in small steps, conquer small goals and train progressively.
But, without acceptance you get either ignorance or denial. With ignorance, you simply don’t know where you are — you’ve probably never even thought about it. You don’t know that you don’t know. You’ll only have a fuzzy notion of what you can and can’t do. You’ll experience some easy successes and some dismal failures, but you’re more likely to blame the task or blame yourself instead of simply acknowledging that the “weight” was too heavy for you and that you need to become stronger.

When you’re in a state of denial about your level of speech, you’re locked into a false view of reality. You’re either overly pessimistic or optimistic about your capabilities. Afterwards you may either beat yourself up or resolve to try harder,neither of which will make you stronger.

I have personally reaped tremendous benefits from this process of acceptance. I was not very good at telephonic conversations, now my job entails talking to the highest level of management at different companies and countries on an everyday basis.

None of this just happened. It all started with acceptance, then a lot of hard work - which also made me stronger mentally and emotionally. In the end, I was a far better person than I had ever hoped to be.

I am telling you this to impress you, with yourself. I want you to be impressed by what you can accomplish if you start with this step and build on it. It will not be easy, but it will be worth it.
stuttering treatment and more here at stuttering.

The first step is to openly accept where you are right now, whether you feel good about it or not. Surrender yourself to what you have to work with — maybe it isn’t fair, but it is what it is. And you won’t get any stronger until you accept where you are right now.

And thats why we, as members and readers of this site, believe - that stuttering has a strong silver lining.