commentr/StutterJuly 14, 2021

Content

To a tiny bit of an extent. Just know that speech therapists will ask you why you've come to them that the aim is to improve your confidence that your stutter doesn't have to define you, and they'll remind you there's no cure, it's only up to you to practice and take away their advice if you wish to. I went in expecting to be stutter-free but came out with new profound confidence in trying not to care anymore in making other people's problems with my speech be my problem. Now I'm happy and comfortable to disclose my stutter to interviewers and new people I meet so they don't feel alarmed nor associate it with anxiety when it just happens for random reasons too. It's only made into a big deal when people fuss and nitpick about it. One of the techniques my speech therapist taught me is to maintain eye contact. He noticed I wasn't making eye contact as it's my general habit of feeling too awkward in doing so. He told me to lower the rate of my speech and maintain eye contact with him. I did this and although there were tiny bumps in my speech here and there, I did hear it seemed to make a significant change. He then went on to teach me the slide technique of deliberately prolonging the first syllable of a word to slide into it so I practiced this a lot with him to make a word be longer and longer on purpose as a rehearsal until I was comfortable. I'm grateful I had him. He was very competent and knowledgeable. He was easy to talk to and made me see an entirely different angle to my stutter of reminding me that whatever I do with my stutter, it's entirely up to me, but to just always try to relax and use these techniques if I want to that if I do stutter then it happens. At least it'll show me who's going to still treat me with respect or not. It's not likely that people will think about it for ages.

Themes

Identity & DisabilityTherapy & ProfessionalCoping & Advocacy

Subthemes

Acceptance & PrideTherapy ExperiencesFluency Techniques

Codes (2)

saying_name_introductionperceived_judgment