Retired speech and language therapist Franklin Brook describes the first of two techniques he developed to reduce stammering and produce a more fluent and relaxed way of speaking.

One day it may be possible to help the stammerer find fluency without having to use new speech patterns. We have used a wide variety of speech patterns with our patients over a period of thirty years. Although most have been successful in some measure they rarely brought about a significant measure of improvements within a reasonable period of time. In continuing the search for new speech patterns it is believed that SSR is an extension or improvement on existing patterns.

Slack syllabic speech is so named because one of its characteristics is the independent relationship that exists between a syllable and its neighbouring syllables. A stammerer can often be seen or heard striving to reach the next part of his* utterance. If he were a motorist he would be seen trying to push his car with the brakes fully on.

SSR is difficult to describe, it is better demonstrated. F. Grewal (1963) writes: "Prosody, that is the different stresses or prosodic features and intonation, governs the scansion and melody of sentences, by the variations of pitch, stress, rhythm and melodic line........." SSR might be described as a very relaxed pattern of speech with prosodic features minimised. Syllable timing is improved by natural means and without the help of metronomes. Timing is regarded as important in a speech pattern but not of greater importance than other factors.

The usefulness of SSR is undoubtedly due to its being designed to counter the major difficulties the stammerer may have to contend with. These are:-

1.Propositionality, message content, or communicative stress
2.Disordered syllabic timing
3.Sharp contrasts between juxtaposed syllables
4.Neuromuscular tension
5.Transitional demands
6.Struggle

1. Propositionality, message content or communicative stress
Although many writers have written about syllable-timed speech patterns no one claims to understand why such patterns are of help to the stammerer. Surely it is largely because of reduced propositionality. By attending to one syllable at a time the speaker escapes much of the communicative stress which may be present for instance, when he is seeing whole group of words which are sufficient to give meaning to the proposition. For somewhat similar reasons the stammerer usually has no difficulty when singing or when repeating something already spoken.

2. Disordered syllable timing
The stammerer anticipating a block may take evasive action which usually results in upset timing and some means of enabling subjects to determine the moment at which an utterance should occur serves to facilitate fluency. (Beach and Fransella 1966).

3. Sharp contrasts between juxtaposed syllables
If we read a dramatic and exciting piece of news in such a manner as to create maximum affect on our audience, then recording and replaying, we shall be able to take note of the sharp contrasts of stress between neighbouring syllables. We may observe that our stressed syllables have been given even more stress at the expense of the less important syllables. If we then play the recording again tapping out the syllabic pattern on the palm of our left hand using the middle three fingers of the right hand, we shall sense the pattern surging along as it negotiates syllables of contracting length. From this simple experiment we sense more clearly the complexities of sequencing and the marked contrasts which can occur even within a word, for example sedition, tomorrow, unequivocal. It is suggested that the complexities of sequencing may be the biggest threat facing the two year old child of certain predisposition.

4. Neuromuscular tension
Excess neuromuscular tension will find its way into the new speech patterns of most stammerers sooner rather than later unless measures are introduced to counter the stammerer's usual response, of an increase in neuromuscular tension, to feeling threatened in a speaking situation. The SSR pattern has relaxation as one of its corner-stones and demands that the user of the SSR pattern has acquired the skill in relaxation techniques but also provides fulltime employment for this skill.

5.Transitional demands
The stammerer is programmed, or so it would seem, with the necessity to perpetuate the struggle of transition. His speech may seem to be a continuing struggle to pass from one checkpoint to the next. Although the difficulty may be in moving from one sound to the next (or from one syllable to the following one), the timing factors in STS and SSR do tend to re-programme the stammerer not only to move from one unit to the next but to keep moving.

6. Struggle
Involvement in the struggle to avoid stammering or in abnormal attempts to speak. SSR provides full employment of relaxation skills, thus the confrontation problem or yourself vs the stammer, is avoided.
There is a link here with Block Modification Therapy. Stammerers who have a fear of plosives often lose or reduce that fear by using the Transition method. The stammerer has difficulty with the word e.g. Telephone........ because he is afraid of the 't'.......... yet when we ask him to say the 't' or indeed 40 't's without any sight of the remainder of the word he has no difficulty. It is when he believes that he must attempt speaking the word as a 'whole unit' that the fear dominates. Fear of the 't' is only aroused when it is in the setting where fear has been experienced many times. The stammerer is shown how to speak the word as if the 't' were an extra syllable - t (voiceless) elephone. With practice this usually brings surprisingly good results. It was the striving to move from the 't' to the next part of the word that perpetuated the problem. The fluent speaker does not try to pass from one sound to another and whenever the stammerer tries he is not on a level playing field.

Whilst the need to reduce the habit of 'striving' or 'trying' is only one of the aims of SSR, it was seen as one characteristic that makes SSR so different from other fluency patterns.

What is needed is a pattern for speaking that is the direct opposite of the one the stammerer persists in trying to use. Instead of effort there is an absence of effort, instead of tension there is relaxation, instead of confusion and disorder there is order, instead of striving to move and the braking of movement there are no signs of striving or braking.

The SSR pattern is interwoven with relaxation skills. It is a pattern that is more natural than other fluency patterns stammerers may have been using. 'Patching-up' speech is no use whatsoever..... new patterns of speech behaviour need to be adapted for as long as it takes. The SSR pattern can be used extensively in all manner of situations without undue embarrassment. In most respects it is normal speech with relaxation woven into every utterances. The more regularly the stammerer uses SSR, the more skilful he becomes in its use and the sooner he will begin to realise that SSR, although lacking expression and feeling, does put the stammerer's speech behaviour closer to that of the fluent speaker.

* This text used 'he' for the sake of clarity because men are more commonly affected than women.

Franklin Brook developed this approach for use in the treatment of stammering in the 1970s as a general therapist with the Burton on Trent Education Authority. Mr Brook would be happy to work with anyone who is interested in doing a more objective evaluation that was possible at the time. Please contact Mr Brook via the BSA office.

This is a fuller version of an article appearing in the Summer 2005 edition of Speaking Out