Here is a very interesting write up from Mr Manimaran, Coordinator, Chennai Chapter of TISA. It is all based on experiential learning and hence worthy of our serious attention.

Dear friends,
In this post, I write about seven simple techniques to overcome 90% of stuttering. This is based on my personal experience of heading the Chennai chapter SHG for more than 8 months. By following 7 simple techniques, 5 PWS have overcome 90% of their problems in 8 months' time. How?

We started this SHG in January 2009 and have completed 15 sessions so far, up to August 2009. For the first 8 classes we conducted this group as a group speech therapy type of session: preparation of notes, speech therapy techniques like prolongation of first syllable of the sentence, pre-block correction, post-block correction etc. were taught and practiced. The session attendance started declining week after week. We called personally each one over phone and asked the reason for their absence. They informed that (1) They had no time to practice speech therapy (2) They were unable to understand the speech therapy and (3) They hated mechanical way of speaking instead of natural way.

We started thinking: was there anything wrong in these sessions? We didn’t find any answers. But we understood that people required very simple techniques which can be easily followed every day and they did not mind the time taken to overcome their stuttering. Then we decided to formulate simple techniques on experimental basis which can be easily followed by everyone. We adhere to the theme of “accept your stuttering” as a central point; other points revolve around this core point.

Here I would suggest that each SHG should have a core point like this (of course apart from the important point of overcoming stuttering) which should suit every member of the group, based on their local conditions, cultural and religious beliefs etc., rather than the best one.

Some PWS expected new lessons to be taught in every class. To them we clearly told that if you follow certain basic fundamentals to overcome stuttering, you are as good as 90% recovered. We firmly believe that to achieve anything in life, we have to follow certain basic fundamentals before advancing further. Similarly we have to follow certain basic fundamentals to overcome stuttering before advancing further on this issue. That is, any advance techniques have to be build on these basic fundamental. Then only we can achieve the desired results.
Thus we formulated the following7 basic fundamentals for our 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 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.
We have already discussed enough about this in detail. Hence no further discussion is required.
2. Attending regular SHG meetings
I know one PWS who has been attending almost all the meetings from the beginning for the last 8 months (he is between severe and moderate stutterer). He has not been able to understand the speech therapy due to his level of education and therefore is not doing any speech therapy at home. But he is a very sincere PWS and accepts in toto whatever we say. We have not seen 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 is the power of SHG! If we regularly attend SHG, a constant massage is entering our inner consciousness: 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 overcome 95% of my stuttering. So it is very difficult to overcome stuttering through reading books, browsing internet, joining stuttering chat groups alone. Of course these also will help, but see the power of SHG where one PWS by simply attending group meetings regularly overcome 90% of stuttering even without practicing speech therapy! But of course, I do recommend speech therapy as well, wherever possible. So join a SHG or start one even with 2 PWS. In fact I have started SHG with only 3 PWS in the year 2001. Now in 2009 it has grown over 25 PWS.

3. Normal eye contact
While speaking we should have normal eye contact with others. This is not only for PWS but also for normal 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 speak well.

4. Pause a few seconds between sentences
We stutterers have a tendency to speak continuously without pausing between sentences which results in shortness of breath; then, we start blocking on the words. This is most important that PWS practice (while speaking or reading) pausing between sentences for a few seconds which helps a great deal in the 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 from others, though we pretty well know that it is not possible, thus wasting lot of our energy. Instead we can talk openly about our stuttering with others and get rid of our shame, fear, guilt, embarrassment and other negative feelings. After all, we are not criminals! We are not thieves! We are not doing anything illegal! We are only stuttering. We also don’t know why we are stuttering. So why should we be ashamed of our stuttering?. Let us speak openly with others.

6. Help to the fellow stutterers
This is one of the important DUTIES of any stutterers. 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 helping yourself only’. This should rather be experienced individually like understanding the taste of sugar by tasting it only. So help fellow stutterers.

7. Eliminate the secondary symptoms
This may be slightly difficult at the beginning but with regular practice, we can achieve this also. This is also a very important step towards recovery. Those we don’t know about secondary symptoms I will briefly explain. Invariably, all the 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 tend to strain my abdomen muscles. Now I am working on not to strain my abdomen muscle during stuttering. I overcome 50% which resulted in more fluency in my speech. I am working more on this to eliminate the residual problem and hope to succeed in a couple of months. But the straining muscles vary from PWS to PWS and unfortunately the different muscles or body parts involved in secondary behaviours have to be identified by the individuals themselves, as a first step.

If our speech therapy is built on the above 7 fundamentals, there is no reason why we cannot conquer our stuttering and speak fluently like others. So I request everyone to work on their speech therapy on the above 7 fundamentals and wish  everyone to speak well in one year time. ALL THE BEST TO EVERY ONE.

Before signing off I wish to express my thanks to Dr.Sachin, the Coordinator of TISA, without his help I could not come up to this level. I also wish to express my gratitude to all the PWS in Chennai chapter and its office bearers like Mr.Sivasubramanian, Mr.Vishal Dadha and Mr.Hassanand without whose support, the Chennai chapter would not have come to this level.

Regards,
V. Manimaran