How I escaped the comforts of stammering
By Steve Sheasby

When I started the integrated therapy course at London's City Lit in May 2005 I was blocking on nearly every word. Everything you shouldn't do, I did. Combining the 'speak more fluently' and the 'stammer more fluently' approaches has worked to great advantage. Here's how.

Steve Sheasby

I knew I had a problem with avoidance. Two years ago I would walk two miles to the next train station if the ticket machine at my local station was out-of-order and I didn't have a pen and paper to write down what I wanted. Avoidance maintained both the stammering and the fear of it. The course combines a fluency technique with block modification, avoidance reduction, and desensitisation.

Vocal fold management is a four part fluency technique based on using the diaphragm to breathe 'low and slow'. The first part is to let go and exhale completely. The second part is to begin to inhale and feel the air passing over the relaxed articulators. The third part is to continue to inhale and feel the diaphragm move down and the ribs expand. The fourth part is to exhale without hesitation and feel that the vocal folds (otherwise known as the voice box) are open. Speaking occurs on the fourth part while breathing out. There is more detail involved with the technique, but that is an overview.

Once I had learned this technique by doing the minimum of 20 minutes daily practice, I then had to unlearn the way I experienced stammering as something shameful to be avoided.

New ways of thinking

The cognitive therapy element in the course helped me identify two of my negative automatic thoughts. These were: 'Oh no, I am going to stammer', and more importantly: 'I don't want to sound odd'. To integrate a fluency technique into the everyday world you need to acknowledge these negative thoughts and move through them.

During the second week of the course I gave a completely fluent three-minute presentation to the rest of the group. This proved to me that vocal fold management could be used to replace stammered speech with fluent speech. It also showed the value of being prepared and motivated. I have identified five stages in my success.

1. Approach, not avoidance
The tutors encouraged us into situations that I never imagined I could enter, for example, sending us out to stop people in the street and ask them if they would do a short survey about people's attitudes to stammering. This was one of the most difficult things I had ever done. These assignments, although encouraged, weren't compulsory. But with plenty of support, you go out in pairs, you want to participate, and this encourages you to approach rather than to avoid speaking.

2. Desensitisation to stammering
When I am in a situation where I'm talking to someone I don't know, I will say "I'm a stammerer, so I may need a little more time." It gets things out in the open to start with, it explains to the listener why there may be pauses, and it makes it a lot easier for me to use my speech techniques. Before the course I would never mention my stammering to anyone.

3. Speaking more fluently
The success of vocal fold management in my presentation spurred me on to make a real commitment to do the minimum of twenty minutes daily practice.
Participating in speaking circles at City Lit also helped. Maybe it was the lack of time pressure - you can just stand there and say nothing. Maybe it was the effect of the four-part breathing when using the fluency technique.

4. Stammering more fluently
I'm working towards stammering in a smoother, easier way. When I block now, I try to think about what I'm doing, what I'm doing to interfere with saying the sound I want to say. I then try to put my mouth in the right position to say the sound and move forward.

5. Integrating the 'speaking more fluently' and the 'stammering more fluently' approaches
As well as the four points above, you learn that you have choices and options for managing your speech. You have responsibility for learning the techniques and asking questions - in my case, questioning my resistance to the discipline of daily practice. But without daily practice nothing is realized.

Commitment to action

After the course had finished, I did some more surveys on people's attitudes. This has been particularly useful in improving my relationships at work. Desensitisation to stammering is always useful, and needs continued commitment to action. Paradoxically, desensitation to fluency leads toward more normal speech. Accept yourself as a person who will sometimes exaggerate a component of normal speech to generate fluent speech. Dare to sound a bit odd, at least for a time. Who knows, it will probably sound less abnormal to your listener than what you normally do when you stammer.

To help to see my life in a fuller way, I have found it very important to focus on the speaking events in which I achieved my aims each day, rather than seeing things through the problems of stammering. I keep a diary of this and tell other people about my successes.

Practice, practice, practice, and then do some more practice.

To use vocal fold management effectively you have to do at least 20 minutes practice a day.

If you can't fit 20 minutes into your daily routine, change your daily routine.

How strong is your desire to 'speak more fluently' and to 'stammer more fluently'?

From the Spring 2007 issue of 'Speaking Out', pages 10-11

See also:
Fluency techniques and the skills to use them in one course - clients and London's City Lit team talk about the results so far from the integrated approach course.
Our City Lit page