What works
by Salman Alam

I have been trying different things to stop stammering since I was four years old. I am now 28. Attending regular groups at the Willy Russell centre in Liverpool has brought me to the stage where I can decide how I am going to stammer and when I am going to stammer. It has been a long journey. I felt that there was a continuous struggle of trying to be fluent when I used to talk and I always asked myself how I could stop doing that. The most important thing is when you start believing in things that work, for example, if I remember not to hide my stammer by trying to be fluent then everything starts working.

At the moment I am working as a volunteer at the Willy Russell centre with children and adults. I hope I will be able to help other people who need some kind of encouragement from someone and that I might be the right person to do so. If I can do it, every one of us can do it.

Things which are useful
eye contact
not allowing the fear inside to take control of you
accepting your stammer, with a kind of feeling that you are showing your stammer to the listener, which can result in much less stammering
pausing is very, very useful and the listener can see the good effects of pausing
reminding yourself again and again of the right things to do. When you do them, you start believing in yourself which takes the fear of stammering from you.

From the Winter 2007 edition of Speaking Out, page 17