As a run up to ISAD 22nd October 2009, TISA is bringing out a series of testimonies by people who stammer. We believe that such sharing benefits everyone- author, reader, society. Story telling was an art among traditional communities- and an important tool to pass on skills and knowledge from one generation to the next. These stories tell you about the uncommon lives of common men. Mr Manimaran heads the Chennai chapter of TISA.

MY STUTTERING LIFE (By Mr Manimaran)

(This article is based on my experience with my stuttering life and experience in running self help group and is not against any earlier belief)

Introduction

I am one of the five children born to my parents in Tamil Nadu, a southern part of India. I am a stutterer from my childhood. In fact my father also stuttered, but mildly. But he was able to manage speaking fluently without blocking on words. My father had done diploma in civil engineering (then called Licentiate in Civil Engineering) in the college of Engineering, Guindy, Madras (now Chennai) in the year 1952.

My schooldays

Since my father worked as an Engineer in a Government department, he used to get transfers frequently from one place to another. Hence I studied in seven schools before completing my SSLC! As I always stood first in all classes, others, including teachers treated me well. In fact I got double promotion from class I to III for the simple reason that I could recite English alphabets A,B,C…..up to Z correctly (Thanks to my father who taught this to me). One thing I wish to tell that all the schools I studied were government owned because in those days private schools were not available in small towns like these days. I came to Chennai in 1969 and settled there permanently. I dont know if I would have scored first rank had I studied in private schools where the standards were high. I was the only student in my school scored 100/100 in Mathematics (Thanks to my father again) in SSLC public exam. Here, I wish to inform that my father had also scored 100/100 in SSLC in the year 1949 in a village even without electricity. By and large, my school life went on well like other normal speaking persons. I have not felt any embarrassment because of stuttering. I had also not taken any treatment as not much speech therapy was available at that time. My parents and others were under the impression that my stuttering would go away in due course of time.

I joined Pre University in Madras Christian College in 1973, where I started experiencing embarrassment for the first time because of stuttering. The syllabus in PUC was very much higher than that of SSLC. Moreover, I had switched over to English medium from my mother tongue Tamil. Because of stuttering, I became afraid of asking questions from lecturers whenever I faced doubts. This was not the case during my school years. Since duration of the PUC was only one year, somehow I managed with help from some friends and completed my PUC. In PUC also I scored 100/100 in Mathematics. I was quite fond of Mathematics!

My first therapy

After completing PUC, I thought of overcoming my stuttering problem. In 1970s specialized treatment for any disorder was very limited. In fact we used to go the Govt General hospital at Chennai for all specialized treatments. Hence I went to the General hospital and checked about any treatment available to overcome this problem.

As far as my parents are concerned, my father was born in a poor family in a hamlet; he studied in the light of oil lamp as no electricity was available at that time and he was the first one to enter the college from our entire family. He is a mild stutterer and since not much treatment was available in 1970s, he was unable to do anything about my stuttering. My mother is a house wife and her whole time was devoted to bring up her five children. Because of her lack of awareness, she didn’t bother about my stuttering. My father died in 1995 and my mother now lives with my youngest brother.

I met a speech therapist at the hospital who was giving speech therapy at that time to about 10 children from 6 Yrs to 10 Yrs. As I was 15 Yrs old at that time, I initially hesitated to join that group. Some how, I decided to join that group as I desperately wanted to get rid of the stuttering. The speech therapist taught me about prolongation of first syllable of a word and to speak slowly. He also instructed me to read slowly for about an hour daily. I practiced for few days and discontinued afterwards due to the fact that it was not yielding any results. Moreover I hated mechanical way of prolongation of speech.

My college days

After completion of my school, I got admission in a reputed Engineering colleges - Regional Engineering college (Now called NIT) at Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu. This is a residential college and everyone has to stay at the hostel. Due to my soft and helping nature I made lot of friends in a short time. Whenever I went for outing, my friends did the talking on my behalf like buying bus tickets for me, ordering food at restaurants etc. In those five years, I enjoyed my college life fully without bothering about my stuttering. Thanks to the latest technological developments of internet and mobile phones, I am still having contact with more than hundred friends after coming out of college, 30 years ago. I never met again quite a few of them but I am in contact with them through emails. What a marvelous technological development!

I passed out my Engineering in first class in the year 1979 and got appointed as water supply engineer in the year 1980 in a Government organization in Chennai city and till date continuing in that organization. I must thank the organization which has encouraged me throughout my 30 years of service in spite of my stuttering. They are always helpful and come to my rescue whenever I get blocks during my speech. They never insulted or humiliated me till date.

My marriage

I got married in 1983 and my wife is a pharmacist working in a Government hospital at Chennai. Before marriage, my father hid my stuttering from the in-laws for obvious reasons. In those days, the marriages were arranged by elders and in most of the cases the bride and bridegroom met only at the marriage. This was the case for me also. My wife discovered my stuttering within a day and never asked about it for a few years. In fact she enquired about my stuttering only couple of times last 26 years; she has never bothered about my stuttering. Like my friends who talked for me during college days, my wife talks on my behalf whenever needed. There is a saying that “Behind every successful man, there is a woman”. So whatever I have achieved in my life, the full credits goes to my wife only. After all she is living for the sake of my happiness, sacrificing her own wishes. At this juncture, I wish to thank all my in laws also who till date never complained about my stuttering and have been very compassionate towards me.

Now I wish to touch the subject of whether stutterers should disclose their disorder to their spouse before marriage or not. This is really a very tricky question. If this question was posed to me now, I would conveniently answer that we should disclose our disorder, because my marriage life has been a successful one. This depends upon the individual circumstances. Generally it is better to disclose about the disorder. But the decision should be left to the individuals as they are the one who are going to live with their partners.

My second attempt

After the first unsuccessful attempt towards fluency, I tried again in the year 1998 for the reason that I would be getting promotion to the management level shortly where I had to do a lot of talking. This time I went to a Psychiatrist in Chennai. Like in the previous therapy, he also taught me the same prolongation of the first syllable and also slow reading. I have taken this seriously this time and practiced for a few months. I spoke really well in the clinical condition, but as soon as I came out I started stuttering. I could not find out the reason why this was happening. I asked the Psychiatrist for the reason and he simply replied that speak slowly in all the situations. But I could not speak slowly in all the situations and also didn’t know the reason why this was so! Then I stopped the above therapy. But I wanted to get rid of my stuttering at the earliest. There were not much books available in India at that time (and even now!) and also the Internet was not very much popular as now a days. Hence I could not research and find out about stuttering, its nature, causes and cure.

My third attempt

One day in the year 2001, I went to a saloon for my hair cutting. While waiting for my turn, I browsed a Tamil weekly (I read the weekly rarely) and read a small article on stuttering written by an Engineer who overcame his stuttering by attending a course in Scotland and who was conducting similar courses once in a year in Tamil Nadu on non-commercial basis. But no contact details were given in the article. I wrote to the editor of the weekly detailing about my problem and requested him to provide the contact details of the Engineer. The editor promptly obliged my request and sent his contact details.

After contacting the engineer, I attended his five day course. During his course everyone had to stay in the lodge for all the five days and could not go out. This was really an intensive speech therapy course, almost non-stop from 9 AM to 9 PM. He taught “mode of speech” which is like prolongation and slow speaking techniques. We had to speak in this mode of speech even to the waiters and ward boys who already knew about this therapy. This was to change our speaking behavior. At the end of the course all the 20 participants were speaking well. The Engineer told that the mode of speech had to be practiced one hour in the morning at least for one year and slowly reduced afterwards till completely cured. He also warned that if therapy is not done even for a few days, then the stuttering would come back.

I have done this exercise seriously for 6 months and talking really well. I have also given a lecture in the training centre for 10 minutes. Everyone present was really happy about my speech. In fact some of them were happier than me as they have got great affection towards me. I would rate this therapy as the best one among I have attended so far.

My First Self Help Group

After my third attempt of speech therapy, I started a self help group at Chennai at Marina beach (second longest beach in the world) every Sunday. The self help group started with 3 PWS only. After sometimes, the strength went up to 6 PWS. We moved like a family, helping each others. I attended one PWS's sister’s marriage and one PWS's marriage. Slowly everyone moved out of Chennai due to various reasons and our Sunday meetings became rare.

Here, I would like to share something about the 2 PWS who were the first members of the self help group. One PWS is still an active member of TISA Chennai chapter. The other PWS is a firm believer of God. By profession he is an Engineer and to my judgment, he is an average Engineer but has full faith in God. Whenever we met, he used to say that one day he would go to USA and get a good job there. In India, almost everyone dreams of getting a job in USA and settling down there. I thought it was only his ambition since he did not stand any real chance of getting a job in USA. To my surprise, he got a job in USA and is now working there. I never met such a firm believer of God in my life. Now I too have started believing that there is a power which is guiding us in all aspects of life.

Coming back to my speech therapy, due to some illness, I was not able to practice continuously for few weeks, which resulted my slipping back to old stuttering. I gave another lecture at the same training centre but this time, I was miserable. Then, I completely stopped the speech therapy.

My career

By the time I became a senior Engineer in my organization, executed some good projects, which were well appreciated not only in my organization but also throughout India. Why I am telling about my career? Because stuttering is not at all a hindrance for achieving anything in life. As I was getting older, I had almost forgotten about my stuttering and concentrating more on my career life. But one thing always lingered in my mind: to do something, if I could, for the stuttering community in whatever capacity.

Learning stuttering through Internet

In 2005 Internet become very popular in India and I also got an Internet connection for my home computer. I started reading about stuttering, about speech therapy to understand the whole issue. I came to see that stuttering was related more to psychological issues than neurological problems. This psychological aspect had never been addressed by any of the speech therapists I dealt with. That was the level of awareness about stuttering in India. Even now (2009), most of the speech therapists in India are not properly addressing the psychological part of stuttering.

Yahoo groups were quite popular in 2007. I searched and found one group (Indianpws) in the early 2008; joined in the group and started posting. Meanwhile, I started SHG again at Chennai at the same Marina beach with about eight PWS. Mr.Vishal Dadha and Mr.Hassanand are the two members who now have become Assistant Coordinators of the Chennai chapter of The Indian Stammering Association (TISA). Later on Mr. Sivasubramanian, one of my colleagues and my best friend, had also joined as a member after his retirement and now he is also one of the Assistant Coordinators. Mr. Sivasubramanian was a stutterer but was able to overcome it at the age of 25 and he is no more a stutterer. The above three are the members of the core group of the Chennai chapter.

In the mid 2008, I came to know through yahoo group that TISA is going to be launched at Mumbai by Dr.Srivastava (Sachin) and others. TISA is an Association of Indian People Who Stammer (PWS). Its purpose is to collect and disseminate relevant, correct and unbiased information about stammering to the people who stammer and their families, friends and society. It is promoting a self-help group movement where PWS learn to help each other and themselves. Dr. Sachin is the all India coordinator of TISA.

Becoming Coordinator of Chennai chapter SHG

After launching TISA, I actively participated in the group by posting mails regularly. I also conducted SHG meetings regularly once a fortnight. At this time, TISA was helping to form SHG in various cities and looking for persons to head the SHG. One day Dr. Sachin called me over phone and requested to start Chennai chapter and also to act as coordinator of the chapter. Though I was willing to start Chennai chapter, I was reluctant to be a coordinator for the simple reason that I still stutter. I pondered over Dr. Sachin’s idea for some days. As I always wanted to help other PWS especially younger generation, I took this opportunity as God sent one and accepted it. More over I also had a feeling that if one stutterer does not help other stutterer, who else will ?

After discussing this in the SHG, we decided to launch Chennai chapter in January’2009. The next question was where to launch and how to get people for the meet. It is very difficult to get PWS for the meet because of their low self esteem. I must thank Mr. Hassanand who had shown us the conference hall of YWCA International guest house at Chennai and for the record, let me say, the Chennai SHG meeting is still being conducted at the same venue. The issue of venue was solved. Now how to get PWS and others, for the meet as we have got only about eight PWS in the SHG ?

Myself and Mr. Sivasubramanian decided to write to schools in Chennai city and also approach media for publicity. We selected 25 schools and sent letters detailing about TISA/Chennai chapter. A few English dailies published articles about stuttering and about TISA. But a big help came from a local daily (Tamil Language) where they published clearly about the meeting date, time and contact number two days before the meeting. I received about 50 phone calls on the previous day enquiring about the meeting. Thanks to Mr.Sivasuramanian who used his influence with the local daily to publish about TISA chapter meeting.

Inauguration of Chennai chapter

The inauguration of Chennai chapter was well conducted by Dr. Sachin and Mr.Sivasubramanian on 24thJan’2009. The conference hall was full with about 80 people. About 50 PWS were registered in Chennai chapter on that inaugural day. On that inaugural day, we clearly told to the gathering that there was no magic pill to cure stuttering and we have to take sustained efforts for months and sometime for years to overcome it. We sensed disappointment on some faces while others wanted to hear the whole story.

Change of mindset towards stuttering

During a private conversation with Dr. Sachin on that inaugural day, I asked him that though I wanted to help Stutterers, I was still stuttering; so, how could they accept me as their coordinator? Dr. Sachin asked one question which I never expected: Are you accepting your stuttering or hating it?

I replied that I completely hated it and was even ashamed of using the very word ‘Stutter”. Dr. Sachin smiled and said: Instead of hating stutter why not accept it and love it and see the results for yourself? I felt some sort of spark in my mind; I had never thought of approaching my stuttering from this angle. Subsequently, “acceptance of stuttering “ has become one of the central themes of TISA SHGs and I detailed about it later on in this article.

Commencement of regular meetings at Chennai chapter
We started conducting weekly meetings for the next two months.  I totally depended on Mr. Sivasubramanian for conducting weekly meeting because he had already overcome his stuttering and he worked in the training centre of his organization, where he conducted classes regularly. But his only daughter, living in UK came to India for a month's leave on the very next day of the Chennai chapter inauguration; so he told me that he was unable to come to SHG meetings for the next one month. So I had no choice but to take classes myself. I came to know after a few weeks that his absence was very fortunate for me – a blessing in disguise! For the first couple of classes, I prepared lot of notes and did a lot of home work, as  I had never conducted classes in my whole life. After couple of sessions, I gained confidence and now after eight months I go to SHG with a minimal preparation and conduct session for hours. I must thank Mr. Sivasubramanian for not coming for the first few classes! What I am trying to say is- some of the challenges are purposely created by God and we should take these opportunities positively and go forward instead of avoiding the challenges.

Methods  followed at Chennai chapter
In the first few meetings, everyone was asked to introduce themselves like telling their name, profession, views about stuttering, treatments tried if any etc… I observed two important things invariably among all the PWS. The first -the majority of PWS were not having normal eye contact with the listeners. Instead, either they looked at the walls or at the roof slab while speaking. The second observation is, they tend to speak continuously without pausing between sentences, which results in shortness of breath. It is a well known fact that continuous airflow is required for normal speaking. We the Stutterers are in the habit of speaking continuously without pausing, and thus are deprived of air entering into our lungs which tends to result in further stuttering. So I decided to give importance to these two issues in the subsequent meetings. I also prepared lessons and distributed in each meeting. One visible improvement I noticed after couple of meetings was that everyone volunteered to come forward and speak; this was not the case in the first two meetings. In the first two meetings whenever I called a PWS, he invariably replied that he would speak at the last. Only through SHG meetings we could easily overcome our fear and shame of speaking in front of a group of people. We may not get this much of comfort anywhere else.
After few meetings, I noticed that the attendance of PWS had started declining in spite of addition of one or two new PWS every week. I individually spoke over phone to everyone and most of them informed that the lessons were very tough to follow and that there was no time for practicing speech therapy. Some of them came to SHG meeting under the impression that stuttering would be cured quickly by learning some techniques. Because I had clearly told them that to notice some improvement, it would take at least six month.  The PWS were from all walks of life like doctors, Engineers, Clericals, students, businessmen, drivers and daily wagers. As understanding of stuttering required some level of knowledge, it could not be understood easily by common men. Hence I decided to simplify the procedure while conducting SHG meeting so that the majority could easily understand the discussion and exercises.

My recovery after becoming Coordinator
Meanwhile I made self assessment about my stuttering after becoming Coordinator of the Chennai TISA chapter. After I started accepting my stuttering, I was able to analyze my stuttering better than before. I started asking questions like why I could speak well in clinical condition but not in other situations etc. I discovered that this was due to the fact that clinical condition is a comfort zone where every thing was very supportive, no tension. Where as outside of the comfort zone, people tend to speak at faster rates and since it is a natural urge to reply at the same speed, PWS stutter. In this connection I feel that though stuttering is mostly psychological in nature but a small part of neurological problem also plays vital role. I also believe that the cause of stuttering is more of neurological during childhood and tends to become more as psychological in adulthood.
Coming to my improvement, after eight months of taking class in Chennai, surprisingly I overcame almost 95% of stuttering. I feel this is due to (1) Acceptance of my stuttering whole heartedly thus eliminating my fear & shame (2) Elimination of my secondary symptoms (3) Gaining more confidence after taking classes for more than eight months and (4) broader outlook towards the world after learning so many lessons in life. Moreover, now a days, even if I stutter occasionally, I am not at all bothered about it and do not have any negative inner feelings. Happy stuttering!  After all the purpose of life is to live happily in this world in the given environment and circumstances. 

My opinion about speech therapy
I firmly believe that no single treatment / therapy is available for stuttering but it is a combination of more than one which may help. Also no two PWS stutter alike and hence one particular treatment may not serve both. Thus PWS themselves have to select suitable therapy after exploring different approaches. Once they select a suitable therapy, they must stick to it, have full faith on it and practice it continuously and wait patiently to see the results. Many PWS tend to switch over various therapies merely in search of fast cure which mostly gives negative results.

Change in method of therapy in SHG
After two month of experience with SHG, I decided to simplify group meetings so that it could be understood easily by everyone. Hence I suggested to the members  to accept their stuttering whole heartily and follow the therapy they feel would suit them. Like a magic, vast improvements have been noticed in everyone’s speech. The PWS informed that because of acceptance of stuttering whole heartily, they were not ashamed of stuttering now a days which saves lot of energy and eased out pressure which resulted in better speaking.

My insight towards stuttering
I wish to share some thoughts on speech therapy here.  Some PWS expect new lessons or techniques to be taught in every class. To them, I clearly said that  if a PWS  follows certain basic fundamentals to overcome stuttering, they  are as good as overcoming 90% of stuttering. I firmly believe that to achieve anything in life, we have to follow certain basic fundamentals before moving further. Similarly PWS have to follow certain basic fundamentals to overcome initial hurdles in stuttering before advancing further on this. That is, any advance techniques have to be build on some basic fundamental. Then only we can achieve the desired results.

We formulated the following seven  basic fundamentals for the Chennai chapter SHG.
1. Accept your stuttering.
2. Attend regular SHG meetings.
3. Normal eye contact.
4. Pause a few seconds between sentences.
5. Talk about your stuttering openly with others.
6. Help the fellow stutterers and
7. Eliminate the secondary symptoms.

I will explain the above techniques one by one for better understanding.
1. Accept your stuttering.
Accept your stuttering whole heartedly because why should we be ashamed of our disorder? We are not criminals. We are not thieves. We are not indulging in any illegal activities. We are only stuttering! We also don’t know why we are stuttering! We are accepting our  height, weight, skin colour, mother tongue, nationality etc, then why not our stuttering?  Accept your stuttering as it will relieve most of your tension due to stuttering.
2. Attend regular SHG meetings
I know one PWS who is attending almost all the meetings right  from the beginning for the past 8 months (I rate him between severe and moderate stutterer). He has not been able to understand the speech therapy techniques due to his level of education and has not been doing any speech therapy at home for want of time. But he is a very sincere PWS and accepts in toto whatever he was told. We did not see much improvement in his speech for the first 6 months. To our astonishment and joy, he started speaking really well in the last 2 sessions. That’s the power of SHG. If we regularly attend SHG, a constant massage is entering into our inner conscious mind like- others are speaking well, why not me?   The inner mind will always remind us constantly to do something about our stuttering. SHG is the best forum for stutterers to speak openly without any hesitation. Because of speaking in SHG only, I overcame 95% of my stuttering. It is very difficult to overcome stuttering through reading books, browsing internet, joining stuttering chat groups alone. Of course these too help to some extent, but see the power of SHG where one PWS by simply attending group meetings regularly overcame 90% of stuttering even without practicing speech therapy. Of course I do recommend  conistent practice of speech therapy but to highlight the importance of SHG, I quoted the above incident.  So join a SHG or start one even with 2 PWS. In fact I started SHG with only 3 PWS in the year 2001. Now in 2009 it has grown over 25 PWS. Remember that stuttering cannot be cured in isolation without others help.

3. Normal eye contact.
While speaking we should have normal eye contact with others. This is not only for PWS but also for others who want to become good speakers. By normal eye contact only, we can feel more confident and can speak authoritatively. Moreover by consciously focusing on eye contact, our attention is diverted from our stuttering and thus we can speak well.
4. Pause a few seconds between sentences
We stutterers have the tendency to speak continuously without pausing between sentences which results in shortness of breath, which further worsens our speech. This is foremost important that PWS practice (while speaking or reading) pausing between sentences for a few seconds which helps a great deal towards recovery.
5. Talk about your stuttering with others
This again is about acceptance of stuttering in another form. We always tend to hide our stuttering (though we pretty well know that it is not at all  possible) from others, thus wasting lot of our energy. Instead, we can talk openly about our stuttering with others, thus get rid of our shame, fear, guilt feelings, embarassment etc.
6. Help to the fellow stutterers
This also is one of the important duties of any stutterer. We have to help fellow stutterers and teach them whatever techniques we know. This is based on the philosophy of by helping others, you are also helping yourself. This should rather be experienced like understanding the taste of sugar by tasting it only. So help fellow stutterers. I am the best example in this count as helping fellow stutterers I started speaking well!
7.  Eliminate  the secondary symptoms
This may be slightly difficult at the beginning but with regular practice, we can achieve this too. This is a very important step towards recovery. Those who don’t know about secondary symptoms I will briefly explain. Invariably, all PWS while stuttering try to release their energy through straining one or more part of their body muscles.  In my case, while stuttering, I always tended to strain my abdomen muscles. Now I am working on it so as not to strain my abdomen muscle during stuttering. I overcame 50% as of now  which resulted in more fluency in my speech. I am working more on this to eliminate the balance portion. But the straining muscle part vary from PWS to PWS and unfortunately the straining muscles part has to be identified by the individuals only. The elimination part is very easy. Whenever you are free, just concentrate on the straining  muscle and mentally say relax, relax. In due course of time the secondary symptom will be eliminated without our knowledge and we become more fluent speakers.. (Ed: use a mirror, video playback or feedback from a good old friend to identify these secondary behaviours and to remove them gradually.)
If our speech therapy is built on the above basic seven fundamentals, we have no reason why we cannot overcome our stuttering and speak fluently like others.

Motive of TISA chapters
Here I wish to inform an important thing about TISA SHG chapters. TISA is a self help, non-profit organization; it's an association of Indian people who stammer (IPWS). Its purpose is to collect and disseminate relevant, correct and unbiased information for people who stammer and their families, friends and society in general. It is promoting a self help group movement, where PWS learn to help each other and themselves in the ancient Indian spirit: “This Self is to be achieved through self effort!”
We are running the chapters through out India at free of cost. We are not collecting any charges for the meetings. In Chennai chapter, we are sharing the hall rent and coffee charges among members and not collecting any other charges. TISA has recently launched a website called www.stammer.in and all the articles appearing in the site are not copy right but copy left and can be shared freely so that many people benefit.

My opinion about stuttering in Q & A format
After so many years of stuttering and experience gained in SHG, I have some insights and opinion about stuttering which I wish to share here. As usual these are my opinion only and are not intended to contradict other’s findings.

Stuttering is Psychological or Physical? Is it a disease or disorder? In my opinion, it is the combination of both but the percentage of combination vary from person to person depending upon the type of stuttering. It may start as more of a neurological issue during childhood and grow to become more of a Psychological problem during adulthood. There is problem of synchronization between thought processes  and speaking process.

Stutters are with low self esteem? The answer is unfortunately ‘yes’. From my experience in running SHG, after knowing about the meeting schedule, one out of five only (new PWS) is attending. Another one PWS would attend meeting after one month. Third one would attend after two month. The remaining two PWS would not attend at all. One PWS who is sending message to me for the past six months informing that he would attend the next meeting, has so for not yet turned up. How to overcome the problem of self esteem? It has to be overcome by utilizing the opportunity whenever it comes our way. It is foolish to ask “how to attend SHG meeting” if one such group is already available nearby. So grab the opportunity when it comes your way.

Is stuttering a hereditary problem? In about 60-70% instances, it is hereditary in nature. There is a opinion that if the father of a PWS also stammered, then this is not due to bad habit but an evidence of some genetic (inherited) neurological problem. I am also of the opinion that if son of a normally speaking person becomes PWS, this is also due to some neurological problem and not due to catching the bad habit of speaking from near and dear ones. Because to my mind, psychological problems cannot be carried over from one person to another.

Are stutterers more intelligent? I don’t think so as there is no logical evidence to prove this point. But they are as good as other normally speaking people. I am also of the opinion that PWS who overcome their stutter can become great people and attain the peak in their respective field.

Are Ex-stutterers good people? Definitly they are good people for the reasons that they have met so much humiliation in their life which made them good people. I know many Ex-Stutterers who are really very good people who are ready to help others at any time.

Is stuttering curable? Not curable in the usual sense but It can be overcome. But it needs lot of motivation, lot of courage and much patience. Sometimes we have to wait for years!

Best method to overcome stuttering? Join in a self help group. If there is no such SHG, form one, even with just two PWS. As I mentioned earlier, one PWS, by just attending regular SHG meetings has overcome almost 90% of stuttering. That’s the power of SHG!

Which is the best pattern of speech to overcome stuttering? The one with three second pausing between sentences and with not more than five to six words in each sentence.

Which is the best speech therapy? The one which is suitable to the individual which has to be find out themselves. Before selecting any therapy, first desensitize yourself by accepting your stuttering so that therapy would be more effective.

Time required for overcoming stuttering? There is no fixed time frame. It is directly proportional to the age of PWS. Younger generation requires lesser time compared to older people. I am of the opinion that one year is a minimum period for everyone to see visible improvement.

Conclusion
After reading this article many people got surprised that no importance has been given to speech therapy. Yes, I have not given much time to speech therapy here because this article is about my stuttering life and I have shared my personal experience mostly. This article is mainly written with the intention of encouraging other stutterers to rise above fear and shame; so that they may live their life happily in this world and with self-acceptance. I like the saying “Something is better than nothing”. I will be very glad if this article makes even one PWS review and change her or his attitude to their life and speech. Anyway, thanks to all those who read and enjoy this article.
My only ambition is someone may soon invent a treatment method to overcome any kind of stuttering and I hope God will surely answer my prayer.

Bottom line
First accept your stuttering whole heartily, then desensitize yourself  by getting rid of fear and shame and go for a chosen therapy with full faith, it will definitely yield results. I wish all the best to everyone to overcome this disorder.
Finally once again I would like to thanks all those who helped me throughout my stuttering life as without their help you would not be reading these lines!

V.MANIMARAN