Tips to improve stuttering according to the book: Freeing Your Inner Fluency: A Dramatically Different Outlook on Stuttering-CTI Publications (2015) by Dahm

Tips to improve stuttering according to the book: Freeing Your Inner Fluency: A Dramatically Different Outlook on Stuttering-CTI Publications (2015) by Dahm **Step 1: Analysing phase** * Experiment and explore what is going on in your mind and body when you speak. Make a detailed list of what you experience * Investigate whether you are thinking about words or in some way exerting control when you speak. Make a detailed list of what you experience * Notice how you function when speaking feels effortful and when it feels effortless. Make a detailed list of what you experience * Become aware of those fleeting subconscious thoughts that might be telling your brain to get in control * Become familiar with what it means to speak automatically to stabilize a new neurological network. **Step 2: Practice speaking** * Do as little as possible to speak. If speaking isn’t simple, it isn’t being done in the normal way. Stop monitoring your speech. Endorse spontaneous fluency * Change thoughts to accept the normally functioning system * Feel how easy, comfortable and nonthreatening speaking can be * Gain experience using the principles of normal speech production until your brain accepts that this is the way to talk * Stop 'hoping' that you will say a feared word fluently ​ Aspects I don't agree with in this book: * ***"Make 'control' unnecessary, i.e. don't desire a positive result like fluency***" - I agree, however there are a million and one ways to change the (relation of) perception. I argue that one can also learn to perceive 'fluency' as a negative/neutral outcome, which is exactly how non-stutterers perceive their speech. Usually non-stutterers don't think that they are the best speakers so in that aspect, I believe that PWS overestimate the value of 'fluency' to the point of perfectionism while in reality this is likely to be the opposite. I'm also not comfortable with the term 'control', a better term would be 'incorrect strategy', namely because non-stutterers when they focus (or really try) to speak fluently, i.e. when speaking a new language, then 'concentration / intention / trying / control' improves fluency in non-stutterers so by definition 'control' does not lead to more stuttering in my opinion, rather the 'incorrect strategy that PWS apply' result in perception as a reason to stop with breathing/articulating ending in a speech block. If you feel like I missed something, please share your viewpoint in the comments! Let's encourage a supportive stutter environment.