About Stuttering

The fluctuation type of speaking behaviour often forms into the disfluent speech known as stuttering, which, if no understood, can lead to personality problems at the later stages. One should not feel hesitant in taking professional guidance from a speech therapist. There are no medicines or surgery involved. Ample of people have been misguided through superstition, promise of medical influence or technology advancements, however, till now there is no sure way of getting over this problem, other than a consistent effort towards betterment and fluency.
Stuttering, too has been influenced by myths and placebos, which have no result rather than corrode the person's faith in an ultimate recovery through speech therapy clubbed with proper environmental help - such as parental, teacher, partner and peer support.

For example, When the child is about to be born, parents are so happy and plan the birth and upbringing in a systematic manner by reading books, etc. Little they are aware that speech development is 1% chance and 99% environmental factors. Home environment, speaking and listening behaviours of elders and peers, plays a vital role in the speech development of the child.

When an individual starts getting influenced by stuttering, he or she starts getting into a cone of silence. This leads to introvert behaviour, often word substition and sometimes a feeling of loneliness, all which can be gotten over - by simple, consistent effort and practice.

The longer the therapy is avoided, the longer it takes to get over stuttering.
However, depending on the severity of the problem, an impact can be seen in most cases within a week of therapy and practice. Apparent changes are in the general mood of the person and the willingness of the person to take risks, to interact and a 'coming-back' to social functions.

Slowly the confidence is returned and the person moves from one success to other, giving a voice to the silence that he initially faced.

In most cases, its as simple as retraining the mind and the voice - there are, obviously, some efforts that are needed to change the general way of speaking and interacting - such as decreasing the rate of speech, maintaining eye contact (stutters often avoid eye contact when faced with blocks and hesitations). Once these initial blocks are overcomed, therapy becomes a game, new challenges to overcome, resulting in more confidence and better speech.
After that, it all depends on the individual - how far does he want to rise, how good does he want to make his speech and which situations does he want to excel in. Some would set up interviews just to try their speech, note points of improvement and then work on them.

Others would take their number off the "do-not-call" list, just to talk to salespersons on their products, a perfect way to explore issues in talking to strangers, on phone, etc. (I am a big supporter of that exercise).
Finally, its time when the individual sheds all the apprehensions of the past - when the mind is completely in tune with the new way of speaking, interacting and the new personality. There is still some need to continue innovating, interacting, or what is often known as maintenance therapy.

However, its no longer a problem to be tackled. Its a way of life ...
And the person is finally able to give a voice to his silence ... and to himself ...